The Guardian

The Guardian really is a most unusual newspaper.

I don't just mean that the style is quirky (though it is). I'm also thinking of the sheer breadth of topics it covers ... in depth.

The paper consistently carries articles of a type that you couldn't read in any other newspaper (or at least, not any other UK newspaper, perhaps the NY Times has some similarities)

Here are three articles that caught my eye just in last day or two that could only have been in The Guardian.

1. First - for the content - a piece describing the tactics and strategies Kelloggs are employing to fight the controversial new 'Traffic Light' food labelling scheme the the FSA are propounding. The article includes the astonishing detail that, of the £84m pa spent by the industry (not just Kelloggs) on advertising breakfast cereals, under the new regulations proposed by FSA no less than £70m of it would be banned.
   
   Only in the Guardian could you read an analysis of this topic in this much detail- a double page spread and several other articles .
   
   
2. Second - for it's style - an astonishingly hostile obituary of Marmaduke Hussey
   
   Only in the Guardian could you read such an aggressive, and unrestrained style of obituary (and it's not the only example - look up P.W.Botha) For instance here is the The Times effort on Hussey for comparison.
   
   
3. Last, a round up of the best articles of the year (some of them excellent, btw)
   
   What's unusual about that one, you ask, many newspapers have best-of round-ups?
   Well, only in the Grauniad could you read a collection of the year where (in the print edition) every single one of the stories was datelined 28 Dec 2006 :-)

I recently switched from the Times to the Guardian. I buy my paper at the station and, intriguingly, after a week or so the kiosk owner actually commented on my switch. He said he had noticed that quite a number of his customers have made exactly the same change in the last few months. A trend?