I'm thinking of re-subscribing to my local Trump-backing newspaper

In 2020, my local newspaper endorsed Trump. To say I was pissed off at their decision is an understatement. In fact, I was so upset I decided not to renew my subscription which was soon to expire. However, it wasn’t so much their endorsement of Trump that bothered me as the fact they endorsed Clinton in 2016 and declared him unfit to be president. It defied logic that anyone’s opinion of Trump over the previous four years could improve that much. I actually would’ve been more accepting if they had endorsed Trump in 2016 since the publication has a long-standing reputation for being Republican and I could’ve blamed it on knee-jerk partisanship.

Anyway, it’s been a year and I don’t have a steady substantial source of local news. I do listen to the radio and occasionally watch the local news broadcasts but there’s not much that goes into depth about the news in my city. I miss knowing about what’s going on and it’s for that reason why I’m thinking of re-subscribing. Still, I kind of feel like I’m crawling back. Have I made my point after personally boycotting the newspaper for one year? I’m curious about what other Dopers would do in this situation.

If you want the non-political local news, you can rationalize the subscription as gathering intelligence on the enemy.

Does patch.com cover your town? I don’t think I’ve seen them endorse anyone (but then I only check it for local news of the towns where my family in the United States live). I’d check that out before sending even one penny to any jackass outfit that endorses that terrorist trump or those terrorists the republicans. And if patch doens’t cover it, I’d just go without.

I listen to my local NPR affiliate on the radio and get news from the BBC that way. It’s free also (though I donate during their pledge drives).

As a moderate who was registered Republican until early 2016, I’ve had the opposite problem, with the Philadelphia Inquirer seeming too woke. However, I never unsubscribed.

Now, their coverage of the current crime wave, including unflattering recent articles on our progressive DA, must be annoying some readers who loved their BLM coverage.

Few daily newspapers are are as uniformly biased as often claimed. If you can easily afford it, I think they are generally deserving of support.

Assuming their coverage of local news is worth reading, do what Trump supporters do when their local newspaper is too librul for them - write angry letters to the editor.

It is very difficult to get information that is not biased or even actively censored these days. I am not saying it is left or right. It is both. Large media systems have been quite monopolized. Financially and ideologically. Individual “journalists” can be ideologically biased. I respect those who announce that fact. And take their information as such. Unfortunately we have to do more work to sift out the facts.
Some sources do provide direct links to aspects of their news, so you can follow them up and do some fact check. Many do not. That can be a poor source.
It is good to include the for and against your ideology in your list of news/facts sources. It can be tiresome to track it all down.
But as you track the facts, as opposed to how a source presents them, you can start to build a group of sources that you can depend on.
There are actually good sources of basic fact/reality they highlight what looks good to them factually, while ignoring what factually is negative to them. Look for an opposing viewpoint that does the same. Balance the results.
I am an old geezer. I recall when journalism was unbiased. Here are the ugly truths. Sorry, but we thought you should know. People intelligently discussed the current facts of life. It was a thing. Now I have to sift through stuff for hours.

I guess I’m an old geezer now, too, but this description does not match what I witnessed in the early part of my life or what’s happening now.

I’m confused on so many levels…

When and where was this?

I do recall one unbiased journalist.

I would not bother re-subscribing. There are plenty of decent online sources of news, including local, that would benefit from your patronage. And while there is some work to sift thru the bias, at least you expose yourself to a wide array of ideas, and can decide which sources are BS the same as with any newspaper.

I live in a Red state, but my city paper has been pretty objective in their editorial comments over the Trump years. Basically, asking Trump to put up or shut up about his claims, particularly over the election. There is still plenty of room for Trumper republicans to give their input in letters to the editorial page.

What I find fascinating is friends and relatives who have given up their subscriptions to the paper out of some misguided loyalty to Trump, saying they will no longer pay for “fake news”. These are people who have taken the paper for decades. One friend says he still reads the paper for birth announcements, marriage licenses, and obituaries…“hatch, match, and dispatch”…but claims everything else written there is untrue. A relative no longer pays for a subscription but my wife happily donates our papers to them after a week or so.

It’s ironic what they tell themselves and others while continuing to function like mostly informed citizens.

To be honest, I’ve never found a decent online source of local news. Patch.com has been mentioned, but I find their coverage cursory at best.

A 2020 Trump endorsement indicates a serious, serious lack of critical thinking. That election was awash with conservative publications that broke longstanding traditions to either endorse Biden or make a point of not endorsing Trump.

I wouldn’t give them money.

I really should have said, less biased.

Agreed that reporting without bias is impossible.

However, I sometimes use the word unbiased as a pithy stand-in for openness to a wide range of views, and the inclusion of facts in hard news stories that might be unfavorable to the reporter’s personal POV.

The whole idea of an editorial is to advocate for a POV. So of course those are quite biased.

I don’t read editorials and thus can’t imagine judging a newspaper by them.

Few newspapers are owned by the editorial writer, or the head of the editorial board. If the unnamed newspaper in question is an exception, I still wouldn’t base my subscription purchase on rewarding or punishing the owner, but that’s me.

I do read op ed’s and want to read them from a variety of viewpoints.

Trump caused my old local paper, The Annapolis Capital, to be shot up and it’s journalists to be murdered. Any publication that would endorse a man who called them the enemy of the people isn’t worth lining a birdcage.

It’s just politics. Most newspapers one would read have some good points and some sections and columnists more useful suitable for tasks and chores. Ignore the bad and use what you wish.

That’s a bit of a stretch. Trump’s pretty deplorable but Ramos had a grudge against the paper going back at least to 2011, with threats and harassment. Blaming that on Trump is revisionism worthy of, well, Trump himself.