It depends on your definition of "establishment". The Guardian writers tend to represent middle- and upper-middle-class istances, which are not the same as working-class ones but can also be pretty divergent from proper upper-class objectives.
I disagree on that. Some of them do, some of them don't. The work they've done on Panama Papers and other stuff was pretty good, and overall unmatched in the UK. I have my complaints with the Guardian, but I wouldn't brand them with a scarlet letter.
It's left wing, not working class. The sun is working class, tits and all.
Your root cause argument I suspect is true: because I value the editorial message I overlook the flaws. In this regard, the News Ltd and Guardian are the same thing: they are newspapers. But, my root position also remains. I chose to give one money and not the other. I should just be more open to the reality behind that decision. The only person I am fooling, is probably myself.
It’s one particularly egregious example but there are plenty more: education is another, why are state comps good enough for The Workers while Graun types go private? Or housing.
Oxford is biassed to private school entry because its competitive. But it is emphatically not closed to state school pupils, and never has been. But in any case, whilst a lot of guardian journalists and columnists went there, I doubt all did by any stretch.
It’s funny because if you take an objective look at the Graun - based in a tax haven, all its writers seem to have double-barrelled names and went to Oxbridge from an exclusive boarding school - it’s clear that their left-wing schtick is just an act, a product they sell to a gullible audience. They’re as establishment as it gets.
I don’t buy any Murdoch products either but don’t kid yourself that the Graun is any different