I got 'into' ZH during the great recession and when things settled down I kind of forgot about it. But I was left with the impression of, as you say, a 'punk'-i

I got 'into' ZH during the great recession and when things settled down I kind of forgot about it. But I was left with the impression of, as you say, a 'punk'-ish site that generally was more direct and even correct than most of the mainstream media. I vividly remember being obsessed with the news and reading MSM articles that would basically just quote Merkel or who the fuck else saying <x>, where ZH said <x> is stupid and wrong, and sure enough a few days later even Merkel (or who the fuck else) would backtrack on or directly contradict <x>. A while ago I checked out ZH again out of curiosity (or maybe some nostalgia because I was once again in 'read all the news' mode), and I would definitely not consider it a good source of news. And thankfully I've found better approaches to get an idea of what's going on. But your comment reminded me of a time in my life where I started 'properly' getting interested in current affairs and politics and whatnot, and the role ZH played in all that.