I used to have a paid subscription to the Washington Post, but I cancelled that after Bezos went in the tank for Trump. I used to also rely on the BBC news site, but that’s gone to a paid model recently, and I’m not sure I care to sign up for that.
I primarily use AP.com for online news, supplemented by the websites for several local TV channels, and the NPR site. I have a paid subscription to the local newspaper in the town where I grew up, mostly so I can keep track of local news (as my parents still live up there), and a subscription to The Atlantic, though I think of that site as more for long-form journalism and commentary, rather than for breaking news.
I read NPR, but it doesn’t have quite enough coverage for me. I used to visit CNN for general news, but they were getting worse by 2015 and turned into a trash heap after Trump I. Now my go-to is The Guardian, which skews left but is generally reliable. They have plenty of US correspondents, but I also appreciate getting a more global perspective. And their sports, culture, and lifestyle sections (with the exception of music) are much better than NPR if you’re into that.
Thanks! I just checked out the AP News site and it looks good, and seems completely free as far as I can tell-- there is a popup trying to get you to subscribe, but I think that’s just to get notifications, not to read full articles (unless there’s a ‘x’ free articles per month limit I haven’t reached yet).
I also pay for my local daily paper, which carries a surprising number of well-written opinion offerings from national columnists, both left and right.
My free sites are the aforementioned Associated Press (I get their free Morning Wire newsletter), and NPR (I get their free email every morning as well.)
I pay for NYT, Economist, Atlantic, and our crummy local paper. Used to pay for WaPo but dropped as a protest when they changed their editorial policies to favor the rich.
For free, I use HuffPost, CNN, Politico, New Yorker, NPR, Axios, Slate, Daily Beast, WSJ, and BBC, approximately daily. Also some science news sites.
I used to haunt a number of news sites and watch a bunch of news shows. No more - I put myself on a news diet after the last major election for mental health reasons - I was not going to be put in a constant state of outrage for who knows how long. I deleted links and unsubscribed. I have been limiting my online news to these (I do not pay for any of them) - and life is much better!:
AP
NPR (less so)
BBC News (occasionally)
CalMatters (California-centric)
SFGate (SF Bay Area-centric, and metro-adjacent to where I live).
I subscribe to my local newspaper, the East Bay Times, and regularly read SFgate, which is free. That gives me the local news. I read national and international news as little as possible; it just makes me angry. Actually, I do have an online subscription for the NYT, but I mostly read the culture and lifestyle news there.
I’ve had a digital subscription to the LA Times for forever. Also on my Bookmarks bar are BBC, Al Jezeera and here. Second tier are Raw Story, Huffington Post and the local rag.
I’m not affiliated with the military and not a subscriber just an occasional observer and I was kind of expecting those sources to skew pro rw rhetoric, but I found the articles I read to be quite neutral and just fact based reporting.
Raw Story sometimes get a bad rap here, and I understand why. But if you can get past the sensationalist headlines, they’re basically a news aggregator that takes stories from more ‘reputable’ sources and slaps eye-catching headlines onto them. And they usually include a link to the more ‘reputable’ source of the story. But those original sources are often paywalled, so I get a story I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to read. Several Raw Story articles themselves are also paywalled, but enough are free to make the site worth visiting without a subscription.
Since 90% of Raw Story seems to be about bashing the trump admin, they’re my go-to source when I’m craving a little schadenfreude.
I like to try newspapers online for the duration of their cheap introductory rates. Judge me if you want, but for what’s being offered, $4/month seems pretty reasonable and $14 does not. Why am I paying the paper’s printing costs while reading the digital edition?
The Washington Post is my local paper, despite its diminished current state. I re-started it mainly for the classified ads and good God they have fewer than I remember. The news writing is generally excellent. The editorial tone, once mighty, is a shell of its former self under the new ownership. I think Jeff Bezos has some damn nerve to keep the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” tagline, all things considered.
The Wall Street Journal is probably the best newspaper around. Excellent news writing, thought-provoking editorial stance, just a good deal all around. I wish they covered my local news better, but that’s not realistic.
The New York Times kind of lost me forever when I cancelled my subscription and they held it up until some salesman tried to plead with me not to cancel. This was about five years ago. I react badly to companies that are under the impression that I need their permission to cancel.
How much is the price difference about paying for printing and distribution versus the vastly different advertising rates for online versus print ads? And the comparative volume of same.
I know that even as a kid long before the internet that I railed against gigantic newspapers which were 75% or more advertising. I often said I’d happily pay the difference to have an ad-free version of e.g. the L.A. Times.
Until somebody pointed out to me how much the advertising is subsidizing the newsstand price. Like 90% of the revenue is the ads and 10% is the retail price. An adless big newspaper would have to sell for $5 or more per issue nowadays.
Bottom line: I totally get your frustration. And share it. But the economics of advertiser-supported industries are really weird when viewed through a consumerist lens.
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone mention Ground News. I haven’t tried it, but their approach is appealing - they say they present coverage from both sides and rate the orientation of each article.
I used to read The Week, which presented “side by side” articles to show how the left and right cover the same topic. But that was because it was available at the school I taught at so I wasn’t paying.
The Guardian
The NYT
Brisbanetimes (local rag, pretty rubbish but the best way to get local news)
The Economist
ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission, not the US ABC)
plus fark, reddit and here.
The first four are all paid subscriptions. I suppose I pay for the fifth as well through taxes.
I am contemptuous of people who complain about both the threadbare nature of modern news, and who don’t do anything to pay for it, and justify not paying for it by pointing to its threadbare nature which is of course caused in substantial part by their refusal to pay for it.
My main news is the NY Times, for which I have a subscription. I also read The Guardian every day; I don’t subscribe but I give them some money when they say I’ve reached the free limit. I take a look at Politico every day. Every couple of days I look at Al Jazeera and El País (Spain). I have a sub to El País because I like them and the sub was inexpensive.
I find The Guardian has the most recent breaking news and some of their articles have more substance and detail than those in the NY Times, which seem sometimes to have been redacted by lawyers.
