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I sure wish I had one to recommend. I asked this question on Facebook last year and got a bunch of good responses from some friends: * The Economist (left-lea

I sure wish I had one to recommend. I asked this question on Facebook last year and got a bunch of good responses from some friends: * The Economist (left-leaning but has good reporting) * Wall Street Journal * BBC * Christian Science Monitor

davidw 10y ago
The Economist is not particularly left-leaning - they're quite in favor of free markets and a light regulatory touch for many things. The Financial Times is another good one.
- muninn_ 10y ago
  I mostly agree, but I felt like they were bursting at the seams to criticize Trump. Hardly a piece on the site that I RECALL had anything positive to say about the Brexit, Trump, or other movements. I like to read positive and negatives for both. Overall, a good site/magazine.
  - snerbles 10y ago
    Better to say that The Economist is pro-globalism, right or left.
    - muninn_ 10y ago
      Yeah maybe that's more accurate, depending on what you mean by globalism.
    - mSparks 10y ago
      guess that depends on your definition of globalism. the economist is pro imf/world bank. that is less pro globalisation and more pro * poorer nations for the Western profit incentive. which isnt quite an equivalence.
    - gertef 10y ago
      Isofar as "left" and "right" have meaning, globalism is right, not left. A "left" globalism would be an international workers/labor movement, which Economist does not support.
  - davidw 10y ago
    > I felt like they were bursting at the seams to criticize Trump Could be, there's a reason for that. With some things, the two sides do not really merit the same consideration. Slavery, for instance is an easy one, not something where you need 'fair and balanced' coverage of 'both sides of the issue'. Not comparing Trump to slavery, mind you, but from their editorial stance, he combines a number of worryingly illiberal qualities that are antithetical to their position. They were (and are) the same way about Silvio Berlusconi, despite not having a lot in common with some of his past left-wing opposition.
    - muninn_ 10y ago
      Of course. I just would prefer a little more opposition to the liberal imperialism at times. It would be great to have a journal that's somehow even more sophisticated than the Economist, taking into different viewpoints and understandings of the world. Just as a quick example, I don't see much in the way of opposition to war, or the positive side of something like charter schools. Note that these are things I'm just interested in reading contrasting viewpoints about. I am fortunate enough though that I can find books to fill these voids.
      - pjc50 10y ago
        > positive side of something like charter schools The Economist certainly have done this, they used to do one every few months. It's strange, I'd say charter schools were a very "neoliberal" policy.
        muninn_ 10y ago
        Yeah these were just examples. Might not have been good ones.
      - gertef 10y ago
        propublica.org It's hard to call them "news", but they do important research and expose
  - pjc50 10y ago
    The alleged positives of Brexit have the problem of being incoherent: because there's no fixed policy manifesto for it, people keep citing conflicting advantages. Such as ending agricultural subsidies - while telling the farmers that they're not going to lose out.
- nether 10y ago
  Noam Chomsky said the FT is the only paper that tells the truth, since the interests of the readers and the publication are aligned in making money. One thing I read from Superforecasters though is that the best forecasters read a vast array of sources, actively challenging their own biases. It seemed that the most realistic perspective was not to be found in any one newspaper.
  - gertef 10y ago
    I suspect that Chomsky was taking a swipe at aleged money-grubbing readers, but I agree. It's refreshing to read their advertising charter. http://aboutus.ft.com/corporate-information/ft-company/advertising-charter/ http://aboutus.ft.com/corporate-information/ft-company/adver... (Yes, people don't like paying a fee and seeing ads, but (a) that's reality and (b) the complaints are an arbitrary binary viewpoint that lacks foundation)
  - nyolfen 10y ago
    Are you certain it was FT that Chomsky said that about? He's said something nearly identical about WSJ in an article I read a few months ago
- robk 10y ago
  Look at some of the writers' twitter streams. Incredibly far-left invective. The paper itself is progressive-left but their true opinions shine through sometimes taking it a bit farther left than that. Great weekly read though overall.
toyg 10y ago
It's a sad state of affairs when the Economist, the mouthpiece of globalized freemarketeer elites, can be nonchalantly branded "left-leaning". Left of whom, Darth Vader?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  Left of Brietbart, which is now the standard template for the right. Overton window, ho!
vostok 10y ago
I can see how the Economist might be described as liberal by a European, but they are decidedly not left-leaning. I would say that they are right-leaning even by American standards.
- mc32 10y ago
  Mostly they are pro free trade free enterprise more than right wing, left wing. So when the left is pro trade, it would appear they are left leaning, when their position coincides with right aisle politics, they appear right wing. In other words, economics colours their perspective rather than politics but it can appear to be the opposite.
intrasight 10y ago
Great suggestions of course. I too take issue with calling The Economist "left-leaning". If you'd have said "liberal" (as in Liberal Democracy) I would accept that.
aleph_naught 10y ago
> The Economist (left-leaning but has good reporting) The Economist's mission statement is, almost literally, to advance neoliberal (unrelated to the canonical American definition of 'liberal') thought and policies across the globe. Any further to the right, and you would be in the territory of Mises/Friedman/Hayek, with privatized roads and 'gold standards'.
- eterm 10y ago
  We live in a time when people who are to the right of Reagan are at times described un-ironically as "liberal". It concerns me that people can consider the economist "left-leaning", it shows how far to the right the U.S. (and with it much of the world) has shifted. The U.S. was way ahead of the rest of the world on this, and has always been a lot more conservative than Europe, but it's cultural influence has had the effect of moving Europe to the right by painting the middle ground as "left wing" so Europe makes concessions on things like privatisation of infrastructure (e.g. for better or worse privatisation of telecommunications in Europe in the 80s was pushed by the US). It hasn't been all bad of course, part of the reason the recent election result is so painful is because progressive poltics has made a huge amount of progress. In 25 years the US has gone from racist, homophobic and dealing with the effects of prohibition (the "war on drugs") to the society we have now which is dealing with it's issue of race far better than Europe (which continues to bury it's head in the sand over the issue), allowing gay marriage, serving in the military regardless of (open) sexual preference, and de-criminalising or legalising cannabis. The US has faced up and is dealing with it's racism problem. Europe always saw itself as "nowhere near as bad as the US", which was true when the US had lynchings. And there is still plenty of work to the done in the US particularly around the justice system and other institutional effects which lead back to social injustice. But the trajectory is there for the US, while in Europe it feels like racism is a growing problem which isn't being tackled at all. So it's understandable that people who were already set in their ways 25 years ago (indeed many current voters were approaching retirement 25 years ago) see the modern world and react with horror at all the progress. Trump said he's going to "win so much we'll be sick and tired of winning", well Trump isn't a winner, progressives should be shouting that Trump is weak if he's tired of winning because he's won an election or two, because progressives have been winning for 25 years and we're not going to get tired of winning any time soon. So the dramatic shift to the right has to been in context. The sky isn't going to fall but while huge progress has been made on social issues; on issues such as economic policy, policing and commercial rights there has been a slow constant erosion and shift to the right. So the shift to the right socially is dangerous because reversing canoe from paddling upstream against a right-wing under-current will act as an enabler where you can quickly find yourself in shit creek without a paddle.
lb1lf 10y ago
> * The Economist (left-leaning but has good reporting) -With all due respect, calling The Economist left-leaning makes about as much sense as calling Marx a right deviationist. On the assumption that your comment is sincere - what would, in your book, be an example of a neutral or even right-leaning newspaper? (I am genuinely curious)
BurningFrog 10y ago
The word everyone is looking for here is "libertarian".
- davidw 10y ago
  Even that's not a perfect fit, though, as they support things like gun control that would send many libertarians in the US into fits of sputtering rage.

davidw 10y ago

The Economist is not particularly left-leaning - they're quite in favor of free markets and a light regulatory touch for many things. The Financial Times is another good one.

muninn_ 10y ago
I mostly agree, but I felt like they were bursting at the seams to criticize Trump. Hardly a piece on the site that I RECALL had anything positive to say about the Brexit, Trump, or other movements. I like to read positive and negatives for both. Overall, a good site/magazine.
- snerbles 10y ago
  Better to say that The Economist is pro-globalism, right or left.
  - muninn_ 10y ago
    Yeah maybe that's more accurate, depending on what you mean by globalism.
  - mSparks 10y ago
    guess that depends on your definition of globalism. the economist is pro imf/world bank. that is less pro globalisation and more pro * poorer nations for the Western profit incentive. which isnt quite an equivalence.
  - gertef 10y ago
    Isofar as "left" and "right" have meaning, globalism is right, not left. A "left" globalism would be an international workers/labor movement, which Economist does not support.
- davidw 10y ago
  > I felt like they were bursting at the seams to criticize Trump Could be, there's a reason for that. With some things, the two sides do not really merit the same consideration. Slavery, for instance is an easy one, not something where you need 'fair and balanced' coverage of 'both sides of the issue'. Not comparing Trump to slavery, mind you, but from their editorial stance, he combines a number of worryingly illiberal qualities that are antithetical to their position. They were (and are) the same way about Silvio Berlusconi, despite not having a lot in common with some of his past left-wing opposition.
  - muninn_ 10y ago
    Of course. I just would prefer a little more opposition to the liberal imperialism at times. It would be great to have a journal that's somehow even more sophisticated than the Economist, taking into different viewpoints and understandings of the world. Just as a quick example, I don't see much in the way of opposition to war, or the positive side of something like charter schools. Note that these are things I'm just interested in reading contrasting viewpoints about. I am fortunate enough though that I can find books to fill these voids.
    - pjc50 10y ago
      > positive side of something like charter schools The Economist certainly have done this, they used to do one every few months. It's strange, I'd say charter schools were a very "neoliberal" policy.
      - muninn_ 10y ago
        Yeah these were just examples. Might not have been good ones.
    - gertef 10y ago
      propublica.org It's hard to call them "news", but they do important research and expose
- pjc50 10y ago
  The alleged positives of Brexit have the problem of being incoherent: because there's no fixed policy manifesto for it, people keep citing conflicting advantages. Such as ending agricultural subsidies - while telling the farmers that they're not going to lose out.
nether 10y ago
Noam Chomsky said the FT is the only paper that tells the truth, since the interests of the readers and the publication are aligned in making money. One thing I read from Superforecasters though is that the best forecasters read a vast array of sources, actively challenging their own biases. It seemed that the most realistic perspective was not to be found in any one newspaper.
- gertef 10y ago
  I suspect that Chomsky was taking a swipe at aleged money-grubbing readers, but I agree. It's refreshing to read their advertising charter. http://aboutus.ft.com/corporate-information/ft-company/advertising-charter/ http://aboutus.ft.com/corporate-information/ft-company/adver... (Yes, people don't like paying a fee and seeing ads, but (a) that's reality and (b) the complaints are an arbitrary binary viewpoint that lacks foundation)
- nyolfen 10y ago
  Are you certain it was FT that Chomsky said that about? He's said something nearly identical about WSJ in an article I read a few months ago
robk 10y ago
Look at some of the writers' twitter streams. Incredibly far-left invective. The paper itself is progressive-left but their true opinions shine through sometimes taking it a bit farther left than that. Great weekly read though overall.

toyg 10y ago

It's a sad state of affairs when the Economist, the mouthpiece of globalized freemarketeer elites, can be nonchalantly branded "left-leaning". Left of whom, Darth Vader?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Analemma_ 10y ago
Left of Brietbart, which is now the standard template for the right. Overton window, ho!

vostok 10y ago

I can see how the Economist might be described as liberal by a European, but they are decidedly not left-leaning. I would say that they are right-leaning even by American standards.

mc32 10y ago
Mostly they are pro free trade free enterprise more than right wing, left wing. So when the left is pro trade, it would appear they are left leaning, when their position coincides with right aisle politics, they appear right wing. In other words, economics colours their perspective rather than politics but it can appear to be the opposite.

intrasight 10y ago

Great suggestions of course. I too take issue with calling The Economist "left-leaning". If you'd have said "liberal" (as in Liberal Democracy) I would accept that.

aleph_naught 10y ago

> The Economist (left-leaning but has good reporting) The Economist's mission statement is, almost literally, to advance neoliberal (unrelated to the canonical American definition of 'liberal') thought and policies across the globe. Any further to the right, and you would be in the territory of Mises/Friedman/Hayek, with privatized roads and 'gold standards'.

eterm 10y ago
We live in a time when people who are to the right of Reagan are at times described un-ironically as "liberal". It concerns me that people can consider the economist "left-leaning", it shows how far to the right the U.S. (and with it much of the world) has shifted. The U.S. was way ahead of the rest of the world on this, and has always been a lot more conservative than Europe, but it's cultural influence has had the effect of moving Europe to the right by painting the middle ground as "left wing" so Europe makes concessions on things like privatisation of infrastructure (e.g. for better or worse privatisation of telecommunications in Europe in the 80s was pushed by the US). It hasn't been all bad of course, part of the reason the recent election result is so painful is because progressive poltics has made a huge amount of progress. In 25 years the US has gone from racist, homophobic and dealing with the effects of prohibition (the "war on drugs") to the society we have now which is dealing with it's issue of race far better than Europe (which continues to bury it's head in the sand over the issue), allowing gay marriage, serving in the military regardless of (open) sexual preference, and de-criminalising or legalising cannabis. The US has faced up and is dealing with it's racism problem. Europe always saw itself as "nowhere near as bad as the US", which was true when the US had lynchings. And there is still plenty of work to the done in the US particularly around the justice system and other institutional effects which lead back to social injustice. But the trajectory is there for the US, while in Europe it feels like racism is a growing problem which isn't being tackled at all. So it's understandable that people who were already set in their ways 25 years ago (indeed many current voters were approaching retirement 25 years ago) see the modern world and react with horror at all the progress. Trump said he's going to "win so much we'll be sick and tired of winning", well Trump isn't a winner, progressives should be shouting that Trump is weak if he's tired of winning because he's won an election or two, because progressives have been winning for 25 years and we're not going to get tired of winning any time soon. So the dramatic shift to the right has to been in context. The sky isn't going to fall but while huge progress has been made on social issues; on issues such as economic policy, policing and commercial rights there has been a slow constant erosion and shift to the right. So the shift to the right socially is dangerous because reversing canoe from paddling upstream against a right-wing under-current will act as an enabler where you can quickly find yourself in shit creek without a paddle.

lb1lf 10y ago

> * The Economist (left-leaning but has good reporting) -With all due respect, calling The Economist left-leaning makes about as much sense as calling Marx a right deviationist. On the assumption that your comment is sincere - what would, in your book, be an example of a neutral or even right-leaning newspaper? (I am genuinely curious)

BurningFrog 10y ago

The word everyone is looking for here is "libertarian".

davidw 10y ago
Even that's not a perfect fit, though, as they support things like gun control that would send many libertarians in the US into fits of sputtering rage.