The Guardian, a UK publication with a strong U.S. presence, went hard after President Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency meme coin last week, with a headline that said “Experts alarmed by Trump’s crypto meme coins: ‘America voted for corruption.’”
The Guardian isn’t the only publication that has published articles quoting critics of the venture, launched days before Trump took office. But it’s the only one that followed its article with a fundraising pitch that began “Why you can rely on the Guardian not to bow to Trump — or anyone.”
In doing so, the Guardian offers its answer to the question that many media companies have been asking since November: how do we cover Trump 2.0? The discussion signals a change worth watching in how the media cover this administration. Now that Trump has won twice, it seems logical for news organizations to want to explore what attracted voters to him. But such soul-searching, while warranted, can get clouded in newsrooms dominated by liberal journalists. Trump’s political success helped expose media failures and a deep divide between U.S. newsrooms and ordinary voters.
With its fundraising pitch, the Guardian seems to be positioning itself at the forefront of Trump resistance.
And it seems to be paying off — literally. As CNN’s Brian Stelter reported, the Guardian experienced a “Trump bump” in reader donations after the election. (Not so for CNN. It has reshuffled its programming and anchors and announced another round of layoffs last week.)
Media observers note that the Guardian and other European newspapers are more willing to engage in advocacy journalism than their counterparts in the U.S. Noteworthy was the Guardian’s campaign a decade ago on a climate project with a stated goal to have the Gates Foundation end its large investments in fossil fuel companies. Now, it appears, it’s taking on Donald Trump, with headlines portraying him as a scoundrel and threat, while hitting U.S. media brands at the same time.
Who funds The Guardian?
In the note asking for contributions that currently appears at the bottom of all articles in the Guardian US, editor Betsy Reed wrote: “As Trump himself observed: ‘The first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.’ He’s not entirely wrong. All around us, media organizations have begun to capitulate.”
Reed cited newspapers withholding election endorsements “at the behest of their billionaire owners” (a not-so-subtle dig at the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post) and reporters that “bent the knee at Mar-a-Lago,” an apparent reference to the November visit by MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. She also mentioned ABC News agreeing to a $16 million settlement over Trump’s successful charge of defamation.
While much of the editor’s note was a promise that the Guardian will hold fast to one of the traditional ideals of journalism — holding the powerful accountable — it was remarkable that it did so while bludgeoning other media outlets — including some historically seen as the most respected in American media. “The Guardian has neither a self-interested billionaire owner nor profit-seeking corporate henchmen pressuring us to appease the rich and powerful,” Reed wrote.
What the publication does have, however, is a trust, established in 1936 “to secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of the Guardian free from commercial or political interference.”
That sets the publication apart from news outlets in the U.S. There are American publications that are owned or partially owned by nonprofits, such as the Tampa Bay Times (owned by the nonprofit Poynter Institute for Media Studies) and The Atlantic (majority owned by Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective). But Rick Edmonds, Poynter’s media business analyst, told me that there is no exact U.S. counterpart for the Guardian’s business model. The publication is forging its own path, with a strategy that includes aggressive coverage of U.S. politics.
The Guardian doesn’t have a paywall, but does ask readers for contributions, similar to PBS, and says more than half of its revenue comes from readers. The publication is also heavily invested in the U.S., with offices in Washington, D.C., New York and San Francisco, and more than 100 reporters and editors among a U.S. staff of about 160 employees. The Guardian’s reporting reaches about 40 million Americans each month, spokesman Matt Mittenthal told me, and the publication has received one-time or recurring donations from about 450,000 readers in the U.S.
Is the Guardian liberal?
While one of the most respected publications in the UK, the publication is also known for its liberal focus. Edmonds, who attended graduate school in England, said it’s more typical of UK newspapers to openly embrace a political ideology, unlike in the U.S. where publications want to be seen as neutral, and he said that the Guardian has staked out a position as a “strong left-of-center viewpoint.”
“But, at the same time, they’re not Mother Jones or anything like that. They have a position, but they have serious reporting and all kinds of standards you’d like to see, and I think they have some flair as well,” he said. Mother Jones magazine, founded in 1976, is a reader-supported publication known for its investigative journalism and decidedly change-focused progressive leanings.
It’s no wonder, then, that the Guardian’s coverage of Trump recently, especially of the meme coin, seems much like the rallying call of Trump supporters: “Fight, fight, fight!”
Many of the solicitations on The Guardian’s website this week feature images of people like Elon Musk, Sean Hannity and Rupert Murdoch, with the line “This is what we’re up against,” while promising “free, trustworthy journalism” that is “fiercely independent.”
Reed did not respond to an interview request, but Mittenthal, head of communications for the Guardian US, said in an email, “We believe that our ownership structure — no billionaire owner, no shareholders, reader-funded — allows us to be fully independent regardless of who’s in power. So when we saw some of our peers retreat, put up paywalls, or change their editorial stance in response to a new administration, we thought it was a clarifying moment for the Guardian’s role in American media.”
While other publications are also using Trump as a selling point, most do so more demurely. The Atlantic, for example, this week urged readers to “Navigate a second Trump presidency with The Atlantic’s journalism.”
The Guardian has been gearing up to combat the second Trump administration since last fall, with columnist Margaret Sullivan — formerly with The New York Times and The Washington Post — writing in October that “Donald Trump poses a clear threat to journalists, to news organizations and to press freedom in the US and around the world,” and editor-in-chief Katharine Viner writing the day after the election on “How the Guardian will stand up to four more years of Donald Trump.” The publication also announced in November that it would no longer post its journalism on the social media platform X, calling it a “toxic media platform.”
Some Americans may see this as more meddling from the British, particularly since a number of British editors hold high-profile positions in American media, causing Tom McTague to ask in The Atlantic last year, “Why have the British come for America’s media?”
Perhaps a more interesting question, asked on election night, is: what is the future of media?