Usually the readers’ editor must listen, inquire, assess, respond and reflect aspects of the Guardian and its decisions back to the readers. But this Christmas-New Year I want to reflect readers back to themselves, at their collective best.
The response to the Guardian and Observer annual charity appeal provides the opportunity.
By 27 December donations had passed £1.3m for three charities – Help Refugees, Safe Passage and The Children’s Society – which focus on helping child refugees in camps, in transit and in adjusting.
The Guardian’s social policy editor, Patrick Butler, says that this year the appeal was launched 13 days later than in 2015, and by day 11 £869,000 had been pledged, more than twice the amount at the same stage in 2015. Last year’s appeal, also in aid of refugees, raised a record £2.6m.
I asked 12 staff who volunteered to answer phones during the recent telethon to give me their impressions of the experience. Some donors have articulated their own motives. Five themes emerged.
Opportunity to act
• “I’d had a crap day at work. I drove home angry and fed up. I listened to the news coming out of Aleppo, the final hours of that poor besieged city, and felt I had to get things back in perspective. The appeal is the best way to re-establish some sense of what is important.”
• “I donated in response to the headline about the ‘total meltdown of humanity’ [Aleppo]. I’m so grateful to the journalists and photographers who put themselves at risk to bring the news to us, painful as it is to read.”
Family history and direct knowledge
• Caller gave £500 and said no one was getting Christmas presents this year. Her father was a German Jew who was in a concentration camp until in January 1939 he got a visa to Britain at age 19, “So this all feels rather personal”.
• “My grandparents were refugees during the second world war. If it hadn’t been for the care and the food they were given by the Red Cross they would not have survived.”
• “As a volunteer I have some contact with Syrian and Kurdish families … before their arrival [they] lived in camps, mainly in Lebanon. Some have members of their families dispersed in Germany and France … what it must be like to find themselves in a small Scottish town … with families in Syria still under bombardment. … I’m glad to be living in a part of the UK where refugees are welcome, but it is so little in the face of what is needed.”
Identifying with the special vulnerability of children
• “I had a little boy in 2015. Every face I see in Syria reminds me of him.”
• “I’m a mother too, and I hope, if one day my child has to face a difficult situation, somebody will help. These children are the victims of conflicts that they have nothing to do with.”
• “I have worked … as a child and adolescent mental health worker. I know that any material and psychological help given quickly after a traumatic experience will help mitigate … long-term damage a child will suffer.”
Shame or defiance at prevailing mood of indifference or hostility
• A reader noticed an online comment attacking refugees and responded with money to help refugees: “It wasn’t much [she says and her husband are unemployed] but to that dreadful person I’d like to say thank you for waking up my conscience.”
• “My mother had to flee from Hitler. This country gave her safety, survival and life. I’m saddened that our Home Office has not actively pursued or accepted more refugees from Calais. Ashamed actually.”
• “I find it extremely difficult to think that we have abandoned these people.”
Affirmation of Guardian values and value of the Guardian
Gill Phillips, director of editorial legal services, helped at the telethon and was struck by “how unassuming everyone was about the fact that they were taking the time to phone us up to donate; how appreciative people were that Guardian staff were answering”.
John Crace, parliamentary sketch writer: “All agreed that it was just as well I didn’t work in a call centre because I was so crap at filling in their details I would have been sacked long ago.”
For Ewen MacAskill, “what was heartening was the number – most of them – who said that they were phoning because the year had been so bleak, with Brexit and then Trump, and the Guardian was a place they could turn to for solace. A lot of the year, as you know, we only hear from readers when they have complaints … It’s not often we get a chance to hear call after call from people telling us why the Guardian is important to them.”
Lisa O’Carroll, who was among those who reported this year from the camp at Calais, detected in callers an anxiousness and fearfulness about the future. Callers wanted the Guardian to survive both in digital and print form.
Deputy editor Paul Johnson: “One caller wanted to chat about the tumultuous events of 2016. She wanted to give £10. ‘That’s generous,’ I said. ‘Well, I’m actually giving £30 – but want to make three calls,’ she said.”
Simon Hattenstone: “[T]he same thing strikes me every [telethon] time: how great our readers are, how generous, how political and how serious/intense their relationship with the Guardian is … One very nice man told me he was happy to speak to me, ‘But I’m not going to pretend I like you as much as Polly Toynbee, who I got last year!’”
Patrick Butler emphasised that “this is a cross-company effort, involving scores of staff in marketing, events, design and administrative staff as well as journalists”.
The appeal runs to 9 January, so there is still time to donate.
• Support the three chosen charities by donating here
Usually the readers’ editor must listen, inquire, assess, respond and reflect aspects of the Guardian and its decisions back to the readers. But this Christmas-New Year I want to reflect readers back to themselves, at their collective best.
The response to the Guardian and Observer annual charity appeal provides the opportunity.
By 27 December donations had passed £1.3m for three charities – Help Refugees, Safe Passage and The Children’s Society – which focus on helping child refugees in camps, in transit and in adjusting.
The Guardian’s social policy editor, Patrick Butler, says that this year the appeal was launched 13 days later than in 2015, and by day 11 £869,000 had been pledged, more than twice the amount at the same stage in 2015. Last year’s appeal, also in aid of refugees, raised a record £2.6m.
I asked 12 staff who volunteered to answer phones during the recent telethon to give me their impressions of the experience. Some donors have articulated their own motives. Five themes emerged.
Opportunity to act
• “I’d had a crap day at work. I drove home angry and fed up. I listened to the news coming out of Aleppo, the final hours of that poor besieged city, and felt I had to get things back in perspective. The appeal is the best way to re-establish some sense of what is important.”
• “I donated in response to the headline about the ‘total meltdown of humanity’ [Aleppo]. I’m so grateful to the journalists and photographers who put themselves at risk to bring the news to us, painful as it is to read.”
Family history and direct knowledge
• Caller gave £500 and said no one was getting Christmas presents this year. Her father was a German Jew who was in a concentration camp until in January 1939 he got a visa to Britain at age 19, “So this all feels rather personal”.
• “My grandparents were refugees during the second world war. If it hadn’t been for the care and the food they were given by the Red Cross they would not have survived.”
• “As a volunteer I have some contact with Syrian and Kurdish families … before their arrival [they] lived in camps, mainly in Lebanon. Some have members of their families dispersed in Germany and France … what it must be like to find themselves in a small Scottish town … with families in Syria still under bombardment. … I’m glad to be living in a part of the UK where refugees are welcome, but it is so little in the face of what is needed.”
Identifying with the special vulnerability of children
• “I had a little boy in 2015. Every face I see in Syria reminds me of him.”
• “I’m a mother too, and I hope, if one day my child has to face a difficult situation, somebody will help. These children are the victims of conflicts that they have nothing to do with.”
• “I have worked … as a child and adolescent mental health worker. I know that any material and psychological help given quickly after a traumatic experience will help mitigate … long-term damage a child will suffer.”
Shame or defiance at prevailing mood of indifference or hostility
• A reader noticed an online comment attacking refugees and responded with money to help refugees: “It wasn’t much [she says and her husband are unemployed] but to that dreadful person I’d like to say thank you for waking up my conscience.”
• “My mother had to flee from Hitler. This country gave her safety, survival and life. I’m saddened that our Home Office has not actively pursued or accepted more refugees from Calais. Ashamed actually.”
• “I find it extremely difficult to think that we have abandoned these people.”
Affirmation of Guardian values and value of the Guardian
Gill Phillips, director of editorial legal services, helped at the telethon and was struck by “how unassuming everyone was about the fact that they were taking the time to phone us up to donate; how appreciative people were that Guardian staff were answering”.
John Crace, parliamentary sketch writer: “All agreed that it was just as well I didn’t work in a call centre because I was so crap at filling in their details I would have been sacked long ago.”
For Ewen MacAskill, “what was heartening was the number – most of them – who said that they were phoning because the year had been so bleak, with Brexit and then Trump, and the Guardian was a place they could turn to for solace. A lot of the year, as you know, we only hear from readers when they have complaints … It’s not often we get a chance to hear call after call from people telling us why the Guardian is important to them.”
Lisa O’Carroll, who was among those who reported this year from the camp at Calais, detected in callers an anxiousness and fearfulness about the future. Callers wanted the Guardian to survive both in digital and print form.
Deputy editor Paul Johnson: “One caller wanted to chat about the tumultuous events of 2016. She wanted to give £10. ‘That’s generous,’ I said. ‘Well, I’m actually giving £30 – but want to make three calls,’ she said.”
Simon Hattenstone: “[T]he same thing strikes me every [telethon] time: how great our readers are, how generous, how political and how serious/intense their relationship with the Guardian is … One very nice man told me he was happy to speak to me, ‘But I’m not going to pretend I like you as much as Polly Toynbee, who I got last year!’”
Patrick Butler emphasised that “this is a cross-company effort, involving scores of staff in marketing, events, design and administrative staff as well as journalists”.
The appeal runs to 9 January, so there is still time to donate.
• Support the three chosen charities by donating here
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