Do you subscribe to news services?

I am interested in gauging thoughts on whether Mac Power Users subscribe to a news service such as New York Times, Washington Post etc.

  • Please share which ones you subscribe to?

  • If you do not subcribe, which free sources do you rely on for your news?

  • Do you consider whether the bias of the news service is aligned to you biases?

I do not subscribe to any particular news service. I get my news from the New York daily podcast, NPR and BBC and Last Week Tonight on HBO (because it’s amusing)

I am struggling about the biasness of these services.

Are you looking for broadcast-type shows or just any news in general? I’ve been subscribing to Apple News+ since quarantine states and have been pretty satisfied with the amount and quality of content because you can set up your own preferences and sources (at least of those that are available).

Also, yes, I have a subscription to NYT and that’s my go-to for credible reporting.

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I think the best solution there is to intentionally read from both sides of the spectrum, with some fact-checking in between. So for example CNN plus FoxNews plus ProPublica results in quite a variety of viewpoints.

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I subscribe to the digital version of the Washington Post. Been reading it since I was a teenager in the 60s. I consider it one of the newspapers of record. Story reporting is accurate. For TV news we watch CNN & MSNBC usually. Also watch Daily Show and John Oliver for the humorous side. One study some years ago found that Daily Show viewers were more knowledgeable on current events than Fox News viewers. You have to know the news for the show to be funny.

My wife reads a lot of foreign news sources to get a different view. We have a friend that’s a retired German teacher and she reads German newspapers to keep in practice and get their viewpoint.

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For my main news sources, I subscribe to:

  • New York Times
  • Washington Post
  • Wall Street Journal
  • The Economist
  • Atlantic Monthly
  • Foreign Affairs

I’m a big fan of printed news. I think there is more deliberate research and more time to focus on stories than whatever makes the best entertainment on a TV news channel.

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I became a paid Quartz subscriber last year and have been very impressed with both the breadth and the depth of their members-only content.

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I was looking for thoughts on source of news in general. I am also considering whether I should be paying for news. also, I am also mindful that if I pay for a news source, am i aligning my bias with them? In saying that, even free sources have their bias. Perhaps I am over thinking it.

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We subscribe to a paper of record, a couple good weeklies, and 3-4 monthly magazines. And read the local paper for free by finessing their neglected RSS. :stuck_out_tongue:

I really believe you get what you pay for long term. I don’t see paying for news as deepening a bias, rather, paying for news allows journalists to do work that minimizes unintentional bias due to hurriedness and over-reliance in submitted PR, and allows opinion writers the time to present the best version of their views for consideration.

We do read plenty of ad-supported news, too, but try to keep this core of intentionally selected and purchased information.

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You might be overthinking it, but I totally understand where you are coming from: you don’t want to feel like you are directly funding disinformation campaigns, especially nowadays with so many hot button issues. You want substance and also to know you aren’t propping up negative bias in a time when we absolutely need positivity.

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Every news source and every journalist has a bias - it is human nature.

While you may not want to fund some of the more extreme sources which clearly fabricate conspiracy theories, I see nothing wrong with supporting media on both sides of the political spectrum - that keeps a healthy competition of ideas going.

This is particularly true for those in the USA (including me) with its essentially binary political system. Very few if any political situations can be described or solved in binary Red vs Blue terms. I think it is much healthier to have a coalition system of many parties as is common in EU and other democracies round the world. It is unfortunate that it is so hard in practice to establish a viable third or fourth political party in USA.

I subscribe to NY Times, WSJ, WaPo, The Economist, a number of magazines of all political persuasions, and several Israeli newspapers, and I regularly visit Der Spiegel and other non-North American news and magazines. And numerous other sources – but NOT any kind of broadcast news.

Everything in the major news sources – regardless of persuasion – appears to be a blog or opinionated article. Very disappointing.

And so I also subscribe to Freedom and configured it to turn off all of the above from 7 AM to 7 PM. Consuming media is bad for one’s health :slight_smile:

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We subscribe to NYT, WSJ, Economist, and Apple News+. Generally avoid all broadcast/cable news. Listen to some political podcasts. Particularly like The Politics Guys for their balanced approach (a liberal and a conservative discuss the issues without shouting or raising blood pressures).

I subscribe to a few legacy news publications because I teach in a business school, need to stay up on what’s going on, and I like to pull interesting articles for class discussion and assignments.

  1. NYTimes for digital access and an actual paper on Sunday (my wife likes to read the paper on Sundays.)
  2. WSJ digital - but ONLY for the business coverage. The rest of it is a bit nuts.
  3. Washington Post - I think I got this through an amazon deal.
  4. Quartz (not a legacy) - I really liked it at first, but I found that it was less useful to me over the year that I subscribed, so I just let my subscription lapse.

As far as bias, I try to read across different sites that are still mainstream. The opinions I’ve seen from the WSJ editorial board, and the pure propaganda and conspiracy theories that Fox News “reports”, leaves me unsure of where a reputable, on the level, conservative point of view can be found.

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I subscribe to (all digital, no print):

  • The Washington Post (I usually let my subscription lapse each year, then re-sub using one of their occasional $25-$30 per year offers.)
  • The New York Times (paid for by my college — there are benefits to faculty status)
  • The Wall Street Journal (paid for by my college)
  • Apple News+
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  • Digital Washington Post
  • Sunday delivery of NYT and digital otherwise
  • NPR for my listening enjoyment
  • I take in a smattering of more conservative viewpoints in the Conservative subreddit, but they are pretty extreme in my experience so far so it’s really pulls me over
  • Local News via social media

If the answer is yes, and if you then applied this same standard to all the things you pay for in your life, you would drive yourself insane.

Every news source listed so far in this topic has done good, solid work. They all also have biases and have produced inaccuracies that have led to things that would make your hair curl.

And which biases are we even talking about — the biases of the ownership or the biases of the reporters, editors, producers, photographers, etc.? As a recovering journalist, I can tell you that there’s a wide and unpredictable range of possibilities in every newsroom.

Choose a few sources you think you might like and consume them responsibly, always with a critical eye. Reading history helps with that. Turns out, a lot of the “news” is not so new.

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I specifically had to block that subreddit because they are experts at drawing me into unnecessary battles lol

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I subscribe to the Washington Post, mostly because I want to support their journalism. I’m no fan of their new owner (Jeff Bezos) but I do appreciate their analysis and investigations.
Regarding bias, I try to take that into account when I read information from any source but I am sure I fail at times.
I also donate to our local public radio station for the same reason - to support what they do for the community.

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I don’t blame you at all. I have a pretty strict no commenting policy there, same with the local news. I’ll happily engage individual people on facebook that I know, but never in the comments of a local news story.

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I struggled with the same thing about balanced news sources. I came across a couple of resources that I thought were helpful.

This https://www.adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/ does a good job of showing how far along the bias spectrum the reporting is and also how far away from a primary source.

I also like https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news, because it shows the same story from multiple sources. It’s fascinating to see the spin of the headline.

I just heard about PBS NewsHour as a balanced source but cannot comment.

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