A poll by YouGov has suggested that more members of the public think the Guardian was right to report on the materials given to it by Edward Snowden than think it was wrong.
YouGov asked 2,166 British adults the following question on 15 and 16 April:
It was recently announced that The Guardian and US newspaper The Washington Post would receive the Pulitzer Prize, the biggest prize in US journalism, for their coverage of the NSA surveillance programmes as revealed by ex-CIA contractor Edward Snowden.
Do you think it is right or wrong for the prize to be given to papers that publish stories like this?
The results were:
- Right: 37 per cent
- Wrong: 22 per cent
- Don’t know: 41 per cent
YouGov also asked:
And do you think it was good for society or bad for society that newspapers reported on the materials given to them by Edward Snowden?
- Good for society: 46 per cent
- Bad for society: 22 per cent
- Don’t know: 31 per cent
It has irked some at the Guardian that there was almost no coverage of that fact that it had won a Pulitzer prize in other UK newspapers.
Wider coverage was in fact given to former defence secretary Liam Fox who accused the Guardian of “ignorance and arrogance” over its Snowden coverage days after the Pulitzer prize announcement.
UK security service and Government sources have repeatedly claimed that the Snowden revelations compromised UK national security.
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has said that he has seen no evidence this is the case.
Guardian media blogger Roy Greenslade said the poll proves the British public disagrees with the politicians who have condemned The Guardian's Snowden coverage.
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