..isn’t the Morvan considered another Province of the Netherlands in the same way as a couple of Departments in the SW being annexed by the UK’ers? 
I think it’s more a case of Burgundy owning swaithes of the Netherlands (and other bits of France).
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I am and it’s not even worth that. I won’t be renewing at any price
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The Morvan the merrier?
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We like BFM. A couple of presenters we liked have moved to LCI following the recent takeover of BFM so we sometimes watch that instead. BFM has a star presenter called Appolline de Malherbe who I don’t like, so while she’s on I switch to another channel.
Saw this thread so felt obliged to comment. I became a “patron” of the Guardian when the scheme was set up in 2014. At the time it was £520 / year and I was single, working in England with a well-paid job, and thought it was a great paper; the editor was Alan Rusbridger (editor 1995-2015) and they’d recently had scoops such as Snowden’s NSA files - a vast improvement from Rusbridger’s early tenure which I had not been impressed with as they’d basically sidled up with the government (e.g. in repressing anti-war news following 9/11). Rusbridger used to invite the patrons (about once a year) to a meeting to hear what was going on at the paper; it was at one of these meetings that I suggested the Guardian should always keep their content free and follow a donation model similar to Wikipedia, and it was great to see them take this idea up and use it.
Roll on a few years and everything’s changed. Katharine Viner became editor in 2015, the first woman in the history of the paper. It is since this time that I believe the Guardian has gone down hill (the vagina period, if you like), with a huge increase in click-bait articles as well. Unfortunately, I think the politics has also decidely shifted as well: I’m (very?) left wing but I find the dross being produced simply awful. At one stage it seemed obligatory to mention gender equality in every article, even when it had nothing to do with the topic (“a tsunami has destroyed x naval base so the Russians will no longer be conducting nuclear war during the next week. A lesbian transsexual who used to wear underpants but now wears knickers stated that they are very happy because a nuclear war within the next week could have affected their chances of winning the lottery.” I mean, what?!)
So, I still pay my (what is now fairly) minimal patron subscription because I enjoy the fact I’m a “founding patron” of the Guardian, but I’m not going to give them any more money (most patron subscriptions now are in the several thousands I believe) and one day either KV will leave or she will get better - although I’d guess the former won’t happen until 2035, and not that convinced the latter is going to happen. Which leads onto, what do I read? Well, yes, the Guardian (but I try not to get bogged down in it), also the BBC and NYT, although I’m starting to prefer longer, in depth pieces (the New Yorker, Vanity Fair) and the weekly magazines (I occasionally manage to pick up the New Statesmen on the Eurostar). However, my preferred news outlet for much of the recent years has been Le Parisien (good coverage, and about my level of French), branching also into Le Monde (as my French improves - although quite a lot of their articles are behind a paywall).
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Cancelled my Times subscription last year after about 30 years. Even though I kept getting low price offers. Agree it was becoming more like the Sun, nothing like it used to be.
£1200 a year? I used to when we lived close to Kings Place so could go to the live events.
Sadly the finances of running a paper don’t add up so they have to hound people for money constantly. Which puts Katherine Viner in an awkward place so she has to be more manager than journalist.
I thought Guardian Media Group sold its holding in Auto Trader about 10 years ago, for about £600 million, specifically to safeguard the financial future of The Guardian, on behalf of the Scott Trust. For this reason above I’ve always shied away from subscribing, since I thought that they really must have more than sufficient financial resources to operate a ‘free to readers’ model with that legacy. I might have misremembered but I do recall people at the time thinking that’s a welcome, and prudent move to secure the Guardian’s future - in perpetuity.
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You’re right (I didn’t know).
And last year they reduced their losses, per City AM.
So it’s presumably good old capitalist greed.
"The Guardian has slashed its losses and achieved a record revenue in the year the media group sold The Observer.
"The title achieved a revenue of around £275m, according to unaudited figures for the year to 31 March 2025, up from the £257.8m it posted for its prior financial year.
"The Guardian’s losses, which it describes as “operating cash outflow’, decreased over the same period from £37m to less than £25m.
"The group, which is led by editor-in-chief Katharine Viner, added that its sales growth was largely driven by digital reader revenues which increased by over 20 per cent, to “well above” its target of £100m.
“Its revenue from outside the UK “increased significantly” to over £100m while its sales in the US grew by more than 20 per cent to exceed £50m.”
That’s what it is now. But - as I’m a founding patron - when they put the prices up, they said original members could stick at the price they were paying (supposedly with the same benefits as previously, although sadly that no longer seems to be the case as the benefits were more like the Headline Patrons at £2500/year). So I’m still on £540/year…
No matter what George says I still believe free journalism needs supporting.
I must admit, I do feel this is when the downturn started. After four or five years under Viner I had had enough and so these days only read the very occasional article of there’s something I specifically can’t find elsewhere and withdrew my financial support. Ironically enough, one of the few columnists I do read is Viner’s partner Adrian Chiles. Don’t get me wrong, his pieces are absolute dross that are more akin to a pub bore than worthy of being in a national newspaper but like a car crash I find the minutiae of it all fascinating. Also, he’s always been a lovely bloke whenever I’ve had interactions with him and it is absolutely his genuine personality on show in the columns, not some well crafted journalistic creation of a skilled author attempting to point out the most banal, bizarre intricacies of life imaginable. But aside from Chiles telling the world he has installed a urinal in his bathroom, I’m very disappointed with the paper these days… I’m not sure whether I meant that tongue in cheek or not 
I think another part of the problem is that the Guardian (it’s not alone in this, but it seems much more apparent chez the Guardian, and perhaps the BBC, than with other media) is intent on gaining readership in the US. This has led to a skewing of the output, apparently to appeal to a US readership. And that has been successful.
Are you reading the UK edition or the US specific version?
It was the UK one.
I read the European edition, but find that the NY Times often gives much greater in-depth analysis of European issues.
I’ve the impression that primary-sourced news reporting has declined steadily with the advent of online journals. Few of the heavies seem to want to get out & investigate much, while articles sometimes simply record what’s appearing on other titles’ sites. Some sort of net-sloth syndrome ?
As for the Graun, I’d agree that it has lost its way under Viner (Rusbridger was a hard act to follow, mind). Maybe sthg to do with trying to perform as a lifestyle portal, ending up like an undead Cosmopolitan clone … though Tom Gauld’s cultural cartoons can be choice when he’s on form.
Times has been following a gradual descent into middle-class tabloidery imv ever since Murdoch got a hold of it. Re. the NY Times - beware ! - it has built up a reputation for regularly publishing fabricated stories, its coverage of the Hamas sortie on October 7 2023 being one such crafted serial whopper.
It’s difficult, whether naively or not, I still tend to trust the NYT and also France 24.
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You can rant ! I used to be an avid reader of the Telegraph for the quality of the paper, the business, sport etc. not for the opinion page. Now I only have access to the website and it is utter trash competing with the Daily Mail for fake news. It was this trash press that drove people to vote for suicidal brexit. Now they are doing everything to bring the snake-oil salesman to power but like LePen has difficulty surpassing the 30% glass ceiling of racists and uninformed !
For the first time in 2 decades working people are beginning to gain a rise in their standard of living but this trash press has convinced them of the contrary and is leading them towards the Pied Piper who has already led them a merry dance !
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