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by dreamfactory 4614 days ago
> GMG is selling a product. They (the owners, editors, writers) no more believe it than at McDonald's corporate HQ they live on cheeseburgers for every meal.

You know The Guardian is unlike other newspapers and runs at a loss.

"Miller admits that he does not foresee the newspaper earning a profit anytime soon. Rusbridger said, “The aim is to have sustainable losses.” Miller defines that as getting “our losses down to the low teens in three to five years.” But at some point, if the Guardian does not begin to make money, the trust’s liquid assets, currently £254 million, would be depleted."

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/09/guardian-ce...

"... owned by The Scott Trust, a charitable foundation existing between 1936 and 2008, which aimed to ensure the paper's editorial independence in perpetuity, maintaining its financial health to ensure it did not become vulnerable to take overs by for-profit media groups. At the beginning of October 2008, the Scott Trusts assets were transferred to a new limited company, The Scott Trust Limited, with the intention being that the original trust would be wound up.[93] Dame Liz Forgan, chair of the Scott Trust, reassured staff that the purposes of the new company remained as under the previous arrangements.

The Guardian has been consistently loss-making.

...

The Guardian's ownership by the Scott Trust is probably a factor in its being the only British national daily to conduct (since 2003) an annual social, ethical and environmental audit in which it examines, under the scrutiny of an independent external auditor, its own behaviour as a company.[95] It is also the only British daily national newspaper to employ an internal ombudsman (called the "readers' editor") to handle complaints and corrections."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian#Ownership

1 comments

And Nike, Reebok et al are about sports, but they still make clothes for people with 60" waists to laze around in eating pizza. McDonalds sells salads in their restaurants too, but they ain't a healthfood company.

You've been bamboozled by the Graun's PR and branding, which they should be slick at, that's their main demographic.

Last time I checked, they weren't being run at a loss by a charity specifically to avoid commercial conflicts of interest.

Unlike the companies you mention, The Guardian operates more in the social economy sector (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_economy) than the private sector.