listening post - the guardian: at the forefront of journalism?
The Listening Post

The Guardian: Leading the journalistic pack?

Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian’s editor, on being at the centre of two of the biggest news stories of the past 18 months.

On Listening Post this week we sit down with the UK Guardian’s Alan Rusbridger to talk about the stories that put his newspaper at the forefront of investigative journalism.

The Guardian is not Britain’s largest newspaper – there are 10 in the UK with a bigger circulation – nor is the paper turning a profit. The company that runs it reportedly lost $50m last year. But the Guardian has been at the centre of two of the biggest news stories of the past 18 months.

We break format this week to bring you a one-on-one interview with the newspaper’s editor, Alan Rusbridger. We spoke to him about the phone hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s News International and how it not only revealed the underhanded tactics employed by the now defunct News of the World, but also the influence News International wielded over British politicians, police and possibly other news organisations. We also spoke to Rusbridger about his publication’s unique collaboration with the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, its front man Julian Assange and why that relationship came to an acrimonious end. And finally we got the editor’s views on the future of journalism in the digital age and his resemblance to a bespectacled magician who also managed to overcome the odds.

The Occupy Wall Street movement and its protestors have garnered a variety of different approaches from news organisations. Jest.com is US-based website that aggregates comedy from around the world wide web and occasionally produces its own material and the people there noticed that some of the Occupy Wall Street headlines were saying more about the publications than the protests. Our Internet Video of the Week is their interpretation of the logic that went on in some of the best known newsrooms in the US. 

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