The British Guardian’s new look website has brought protest from a lot of readers but the digitorial managers at Farringdon Road are quite rightly ignoring them. In a very non-interactive way Online Editor Emily Bell dismisses criticism as unrepresentative. She assumes that only people with negative reactions will bother to post. She’s right, of course, but

it’s hardly the democractic dream of citizen journalism is it? The redesign is interesting but familiar. It reminds me of the FT’s recent makeover described on this blog by designer Ryan Bowman. It is more classical, more spacey and less geeky. But the FT is a physical newspaper and GU is a website. It’s also reminiscent of the London Times‘ new web design. The old site seemed somehow more functional with more on the opening page. However, the new design looks good and scrolls very clearly. And at least Emily Bell’s exchange with those conservative Guardian readers brought a delicious new insult to the world’s attention. One irate Guardianista described Bell’s explanation of the design changes as a “pompous word salad”. Proof that the Guardian has the bitterest and most literate readers.