Katharine Viner, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief, reflects on the increasing inequality and fragmentation in our society, the far-reaching effects of austerity, and why the Guardian is making it its mission to seek out truth and use clarity and imagination to build hope. She also discusses how a pioneering business model keeps Guardian journalism entirely independent and accessible to a growing community of readers around the world.
In today’s world, in which public spaces are increasingly privatised, communities are being torn apart by inequality, division and austerity, and more people are finding information in personal, individualised networks online, what role can the Guardian play in championing the public domain?
The Guardian is committed to the public sphere in all its forms, from public space to public education and public healthcare. Like all journalists working in the public interest, we believe in holding the powerful to account; at the Guardian we also believe that good information and good journalism should be as widely available as possible.
From Guardian readers to Guardian journalists, to people who have never read the Guardian — we are all citizens and we all have a stake in the same future.
Our audience tell us that they want to ensure that more people are better informed, and that this is fundamental to the healthy functioning of democracies. They share a passion for the same issues as us – from the climate crisis to inequality to the influence of big technology companies on our lives.
For example, they were very generous in supporting Carole Cadwalladr’s reporting on the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which cracked open a global debate on data, privacy and power which has had such a big impact around the world.
You have called this a critical moment, one demanding that journalism connects with readers as citizens, and inspires them to engage with the world. A key element of this connection involves the Guardian’s funding model. When many sites across the world have introduced paywalls, why did the Guardian go in a different direction?
We’ve decided not to put up a paywall, meaning that we don’t restrict any of our journalism by asking readers to pay to access it. This is because we want Guardian journalism to be as widely accessible as possible - even in communities where they can’t afford to pay for it. There are so few news organisations that are both based in facts and progressive in how they see the world; there are so few news organisations that you can trust; and there are hardly any news organisations that have an ownership structure like the Guardian’s — we have no shareholders or proprietor and we are guaranteed to be free from political and commercial influence. Many readers have told us they contribute financially specifically because they want the Guardian to stay open and accessible to all, so that progressive journalism that is so clearly independent can have the widest possible impact.
Inequality is an issue you have set out as a priority for the Guardian to cover in-depth under your editorship. You have spoken about the excesses of neoliberalism fostering the huge divisions and resentment that we’re seeing in the world. Can you tell us about the coverage you have prioritised in this area?
Extreme inequality is one of the biggest drivers behind the political shocks we’ve seen in the last few years, and trying to understand it, contextualise it, find out what it’s like to live it, and how it can be changed for the better, is part of what the Guardian needs to be doing right now. From Bolsonaro to Salvini to Trump; from the chaos of the Brexit negotiations to the widespread collapse of civic life, with vital services being starved of funding or outsourced or privatised - we must be reporting on both the events themselves and their impact on people’s lives.
Our aim is to report truthfully on how government policy and economic shifts affect people, which is a thread that runs through Guardian reporting and remains central to ongoing projects such as Anywhere But Westminster, the impact of climate change globally, and our series on the New Populism.
As well as examining and challenging the different power structures that produce and entrench inequality, I think one of the most important things we can do is inspire empathy in our audience when they read these articles, watch the Guardian’s video journalism or listen to our podcasts. We want to help build understanding of how other people live and how that impacts broader society and politics.
Wealth disparity and income inequality have varied impacts in different parts of the world. As a former editor of both Guardian Australia and Guardian US, and now as editor-in-chief of Guardian News & Media globally, how have you seen inequality manifest differently in different regions?
Poverty is a big issue in the US, where it is particularly linked to race, and we’ve done some important reporting including tracking the UN’s work as they document the extreme levels of deprivation. In terms of immigration, our reporters analysed thousands of documents to provide a comprehensive picture of what happened to those prosecuted under the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy.
After the Parkland school shooting in Florida, we invited students from the school’s magazine to come to our New York office and to report from the student march against gun violence in Washington DC. They directed our coverage for 48 hours in a powerful takeover of the site.
It’s important for our reporting in the US that we don’t just focus on what Trump says on Twitter, for example, but also on what his administration is actually doing — for example, how dramatic tax cuts or new immigration policies entrench poverty.
In Australia, poverty also has a link to race, and Indigenous Australians lead vastly more difficult lives than white Australians. We have a fantastic Indigenous affairs editor, Lorena Allam, who has helped shine a light on these issues and give a really informed perspective. We also have an excellent regular series called Life on the breadline, in which Australians write about their often shocking experiences of living in poverty.
In Britain, the big story of inequality since 2010 has been the impact of austerity on local communities, and we’ve taken care to report that deeply and seriously, whether it’s the closure of libraries or the privatisation of parks. And in Britain too there’s a link to race when it comes to inequality: think of Amelia Gentleman’s 2018 revelations of the Windrush scandal, or our recent Bias in Britain series, which revealed the everyday discrimination faced by minority ethnic people. We are committed to reporting every twist and turn of the Brexit process, and what it means for all parts of Britain, and we also want to continue to recognise that Brexit is about much more than Westminster politics. By really listening to people, we can identify and tell the important stories about the issues that led to the vote. We also want to ensure our European readers, and our readers around the world, know that regardless of Britain’s future relationship with the EU, the Guardian will be always be committed to Europe.
One million readers have given the Guardian their financial support in some form over the past three years. Why is this model so critical to the work the Guardian is doing?
It’s very important to the Guardian that our journalism has as much impact by reaching as many people as possible. It means more people have access to factual information, helpful analysis and interesting ideas about what’s happening in the world, so they’re better informed and empowered to make decisions in their own lives. We now have 180 million browsers all around the world each month, and readers who live in every country. Our readers help us by bringing us stories and ideas, and they help us understand where we may need to change our approach to a story.
The fact that one million people have chosen to support Guardian journalism financially shows that many believe in our mission, our independence, and our reporting - and that’s really inspiring to all of us who work at the Guardian. We hear from our supporters that they find this model, and the support of their fellow readers, inspiring too. We want to keep building on this model, and make the Guardian sustainable. For those who want to support us, there are many different ways, through making a single or recurring contribution, by becoming a Patron, by subscribing to our weekly news magazine Guardian Weekly, or our new premium app and of course buying or subscribing to the Guardian and Observer newspapers.
A central tenet of the purpose you have set out for the Guardian in your essay, A mission for journalism in a time of crisis, is hope. Why do you believe hope is so important in the current climate?
I was inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s book Hope in the Dark, in which Solnit argues that hope is not blind optimism; it is instead an engagement with the world, a way of facing what is happening, contextualising it, understanding it, and believing you have the power to change things for the better. Solnit shows that authentic hope requires both clarity and imagination, which are perfect concepts for a news organisation like the Guardian in a time like this — clarity, so you get the facts you need to understand the world, plus imagination, to provide new ideas to help make a better one.
That seems to me an important thing that the Guardian can do for its audience in this time of crisis. Together, with our readers and supporters, that adds up to something meaningful, that I think is a kind of hope.
Support our journalism by making a contribution or subscribing