17 ms·

Ask HN: What news subscription is worth it?

• DeathArrow 4y ago
  I came across a guy who reads all the most important news outlets, selects all the important articles, makes digests and sends a news letter daily. It is subscription based. I just have to find it in my tens of thousands of bookmarks. :(
• starwind 4y ago
  I have subscriptions to the Economist (never had a problem pausing or canceling my subscription), the Athletic for sports (they always give me a huge discount when I try to cancel), and since the war in Ukraine started I have subscriptions the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal for $4/month each (those will be a pain in the ass to cancel). If you're worried about canceling and getting billed, put it on a credit card, and if you still get billed dispute the charge as "unauthorized" and block the merchant
  • selljamhere 4y ago
    +1 for The Economist. I enjoy their international coverage.
  • mikebowman 4y ago
    FYI every time I try to cancel my NYT subscription, they give me a deep discount. Also, if you have an All-Access NYT subscription, it now includes The Athletic. I cancelled my Athletic subscription a while back, but since it's included in NYT now, I'm more inclined to keep my NYT subscription and kill both birds with one stone.
    • lawgimenez 4y ago
      Yes this was my “trick” before. Right before my NYTimes subscription ends I always take on their $0.25 per month offer but I am not sure if they’re gonna introduce it again this time. Thank you for the advice, I have an Athletic subscription and no idea it is already included in NYTimes. This is a game changer for sure.
  • lawgimenez 4y ago
    I’m not familiar with WSJ, how good is there coverage on world news?
    • starwind 4y ago
      Pretty good I gotta say. More emphasis on business/economic issues than the Times
    • sgent 4y ago
      Excellent for English Language financial news, and probably just OK compared to the NYT for political news.
  • slg 4y ago
    > the Athletic for sports I would be wary of supporting The Athletic at this exact moment. Just last week they issued new corporate directives to their journalists barring them from covering anything political. This might sound good in theory, people follow sports as an escape from their life including topics like politics. However, there is no way to talk about sports intelligently without the ability to discuss politics. What is currently happening in golf is a great example. A new league has just started up that is financed by the Saudi government as a means of sportswashing[1] their international reputation. Discussing a league like this without touching on politics would be both inherently lacking and a gift to the Saudi government. I would recommend a subscription to Defector if you are looking to a sports site to support. Here is their article[2] on the new rules at The Athletic. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportswashing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportswashing [2] - https://defector.com/the-nyt-owned-athletic-lays-down-new-no-politics-rule-for-staff/ https://defector.com/the-nyt-owned-athletic-lays-down-new-no...
    • Amorymeltzer 4y ago
      Absolutely recommend Defector. Hands-down the best place on the internet, just a joy of skilled folks who love and care about what they do, no funny business.
• Hel5inki 4y ago
  I went from WSJ to Barron’s to Barron’s and Bloomberg to now just Bloomberg. As far as unsubscribing from any of those I haven’t found it too difficult
• di4na 4y ago
  The Financial Times is the best Western generalist publication by far. It is... hard to do better.
  • SaintGhurka 4y ago
    I subscribe to FT and get the physical paper. What makes it so useful to me is that its political bias is largely divorced from American politics. They may have a bias on topics in Britain, but my American sensibilities aren't tuned to pick up on them. Also, financial news sources in general don't spend a lot of time on the highly charged red vs blue stories unless they somehow affect markets or the economy.
• 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  I do NYT Sunday delivery as well as The New Yorker, Economist, and The Atlantic print editions. I think that I enjoy The Atlantic and The New Yorker the most but Economist and NYT are more information dense. I mostly read my news in print, offline, and don't bother with the apps except I do like the live coverage on NYT app.
• pluram4815 4y ago
  https://www.levernews.com/ https://www.levernews.com/
• prash_ant 4y ago
  Subscription to your regional or local newspaper will help you connect more with your community. We have so many wonderful regional newspapers. You can choose from your region. - Los Angeles Times - Chicago Tribune - The Boston Globe - San Francisco Chronicle - Miami Herald - Dallas Observer - Houston Chronicle - Denver Post - Star Tribune
  • vincentmarle 4y ago
    I paid for LA Times but it logged me out so frequently that it became very frustrating to use. NY Times on the other hand never logs me out.
    • gaws 4y ago
      > I paid for LA Times but it logged me out so frequently that it became very frustrating to use. Do you clear your browser's cookies often?
    • thewebcount 4y ago
      I've had that happen with ArsTechnica. I log in, read an article, maybe some comments. My build is finished. I run some tests, do some debugging. I changed a header that everything includes, so here comes another long build. Back to Ars... and I'm logged out. I subscribed specifically to not see ads, and as soon as I'm logged out, ads start showing up. I literally never read more than 1 article per half hour, so it basically defeated the point. I'd be logged out after every article I read. I canceled, which was surprisingly easy given the dark patterns that other people here experience with NYT, et al. I have a subscription to AppleNews. I don't love it, but I get the same Ars articles with far fewer ads and no auto-play video wasting my bandwidth. I don't love Apple's algorithm for finding me content, but it's not the worst I've seen. Sometimes it's spot-on, and other times way off. What's more irritating to me about it are the following: 1) Shows me an article I'm not interested in, so I don't click it. It keeps showing me that article for the next 10 weeks. Sometimes hides it for a week or two, then suddenly brings it back for no discernible reason. 2) No granularity on how to tell it why you did or didn't like an article in your feed. For example, it was shoving some sex-related article from Cosmo at me. I don't mind sex-related articles. I'm not a huge fan of Cosmo (not really the target demo, but whatever). But if I click "Show me less like this" (thumbs down), is the signal "sex articles," "Cosmopolitan," "articles we've repeatedly shown you that you haven't clicked on," or something else entirely? 3) News sources that I've said I never want to see (Fox News, People Magazine) are sometimes "featured" which means instead of putting a different article where that one would have been, I get a blank spot in the feed that says, "You have asked not to see articles from People magazine." Yeah, thanks. I don't need to be reminded of that. Just put something else there! 4) Sections show up where you have no ability to like, dislike, or remove them. This week it's a section on Major League Baseball, because guess who just got rights to show MLB games? AppleTV+. Great, I don't begrudge others who want to watch baseball. I just couldn't care less and never want to see any article about baseball in my feed. I'm paying for this, so it isn't like they can justify it by, "we need to sell your eyeballs to others to make money." Given all that, it's still the least-worst option I've found at the moment. It's mostly leading me to just read less news, which is better for me anyway.
• rootusrootus 4y ago
  I once subscribed to NYT. Canceling required a phone call, and the guy laughed out loud at me when I refused what amounted to a nearly free 6 month extension. Made me so mad, they'll never have me as a customer again. I also decided I would never buy another subscription to a news site that also has advertising. In my perception, ads seem to be predictive of low quality journalism. Most recently I've had an Economist subscription. I like them. They don't make canceling as easy as subscribing, and I do hold that against them, though they aren't as terrible as NYT. But honestly, I let that subscription lapse and I don't buy any news right now. I actively avoid it, in fact. My sanity and happiness needed a break from the drip-drip-drip of negative stressful world events that I have exactly zero control over.
  • bombcar 4y ago
    This is the way I'd go - subscribe to publications that don't have advertising, or have minimal, and subscribe to ones that are monthly if possible, weekly at worst. The reality is you do NOT need the day-to-day news, anything that's important will still be talked about in a month.
  • benjaminbachman 4y ago
    I like the New York Times but I was infuriated by the unsubscribe process. I also turned down a super cheap extension. I am now subscribed via the Google Play store, which means the NYT loses a big chunk of the money, all so I can be guaranteed an easy cancellation button.
    • lawgimenez 4y ago
      I can easily cancel from the nytimes.com website by going to my account settings.
      • rootusrootus 4y ago
        That must be new, maybe in response to some recent FTC opinions that every web site should have a cancelation option that was equivalently easy to the subscribe option. Used to be you could only cancel over the phone.
• wollsmoth 4y ago
  I'm actually fairly happy with NYT. They still cover most topics, although generally I agree they aren't as great as they were. They are pretty much my local paper too I guess. I like to stop by a news stand and pick up an Atlantic, or New Yorker from time to time, and whatever else seems interesting.
• sshine 4y ago
  Hacker News, $0/mo. For following the war in Ukraine, I used "TLDR Daily": https://www.youtube.com/c/TLDRDaily https://www.youtube.com/c/TLDRDaily https://open.spotify.com/show/3yoF2Uwd1JQsErhBHnGQKD?si=pk3FTn3YQPWNeShbVgT_VA https://open.spotify.com/show/3yoF2Uwd1JQsErhBHnGQKD?si=pk3F...
  • 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    More free Ukraine coverage: https://www.understandingwar.org/publications https://www.understandingwar.org/publications
• sbf501 4y ago
  Another vote for The Economist. It is a weekly publication with good writers. Meaning: it is rarely, if ever, sensational, and covers prominent issues around the globe so I stay informed after about 60 minutes of reading. I still haven't figured out which way the editorial staff swings because they do a good job of keeping explicit bias out, but they seem to be left of center. I also subscribe to The Atlantic. They are solid long-form reporting, but occasionally they get a really far-out article. I used to get The Baffler, great out-of-the-box ideas, but the content was too depressing.
  • the_biot 4y ago
    The Economist is very definitely on the right economically, and on the left socially. In other words it's classic liberal, and they regularly make that clear. They've been going with more opinion pieces in the last few years, which is not an improvement IMHO. Only real downside to The Economist though is their app. It's a complete embarrassment, the worst I've seen. It's comically bad, don't-just-fire-them-shoot-them bad.
    • n8cpdx 4y ago
      The app could be better, but the access to actual human narration of all articles outweighs the downsides IMO. Maybe the reading experience is bad? For listening, I download the weekly copy and that makes it a bit more reliable. If anyone from the economist is listening, please give me the option of putting the next 15s, previous 15s buttons on the Lock Screen (it matches what I do for podcasts).
      • the_biot 4y ago
        Yes, the reading experience is what's so bad. Very often when you're reading it'll suddenly crash, or blank the page, or switch to a random page in the next issue, etc etc etc. A few months ago they broke swiping, if you can believe that. It's now suddenly hard to swipe to the next article, because it wants to scroll up or down instead. How the hell do you break swiping in an Android app in 2022! And to top it all off, the insult on top of the ridiculously bad experience: the regular pop-up (when you're reading), to ask how you like the app? Type your feedback here! Which is 100% ignored of course, for YEARS. I've taken to just sending in "fuck you". What, me bitter?
• lelawobu 4y ago
  I have been happy with Inkl for several years. Curated access to many mainstream sources, including Guardian, Atlantic, Forbes, Financial Times, et al.
• giancarlostoro 4y ago
  I personally only reallt pay for WSJ and I guess Apple News but indirectly I am not a fan of Apple News since a number of articles feel politically biased. I just want raw facts not opinion pieces.
  • tootie 4y ago
    WSJ feels "necessary" but a lot of their coverage and especially opinions are nuts. I expect a pro-business, pro-capitalist slant, but sometimes they go a little too far down the Murdoch ladder. Their coverage of the Durham investigation looks like it was written by Trump campaign staffers.
• Bhilai 4y ago
  WSJ, if you can ignore their editorial page, which is so blatantly biased and promotes so much false information that it is a surprise its a part of the same news organization.
  • gralx 4y ago
    Seconded. I subscribed to Financial Times for a year, whose prose, editorial balance, and coverage insight are noticeably inferior to The Wall Street Journal's. I also subscribed to The Economist and feel it is also inferior, but it is a weekly, so that's kind of comparing kettles and fish. I subscribe to Noam Chomsky's opinion that the best journalism is found in the financial press because businesses need a more accurate and timely view of what's going on. And yes, the op-eds are a blemish on the paper's outstanding journalistic reputation. It got jammed full of cronies after News Corp purchased the paper. Its workaday editorial staff remain fiercely independent, however.
  • bin_bash 4y ago
    agreed. It's expensive, but I bit the bullet and subscribed 2 years ago and I find the non-editorial articles to be incredibly high quality. The iPad app could be better.
• mellosouls 4y ago
  There are some good writers on dedicated subscription platforms, unfortunately forking out for several of them quickly costs substantially more than a single one to a "legacy" provider. Example: For an alternative view into US politics to some of the hopelessly biased mainstream platforms you could try Tangle, but that's just one unfortunately. https://www.readtangle.com/ https://www.readtangle.com/ It would be nice if you could collate several of those sort together but I guess that's what the old style providers are still good at.
  • Brendinooo 4y ago
    Came to endorse Tangle. I’m a huge fan of what is being built there.
• whatwhatintheb 4y ago
  I subscribe to the print edition of Jacobin. It's the only one I think is worth paying for these days. Everything else is either pushing scam reflinks (NYT, CNN, etc), complete garbage content (Fox and the like), or straight up falsehoods. For everything else I evade paywalls either using the bypass paywalls extension or some other method. I explicitly refuse to pay for the content because I want to see these businesses die, and consuming their content without giving them money is one way to help accelerate their demise. We're in the scam stage of late stage capitalism, and between the climate crisis and the slow decline into populist fascism, our best hope as a species is degrowth.
  • digianarchist 4y ago
    Another Jacobin subscriber here. I love the art.
• mrsaint 4y ago
  Tried various news sources, but got stuck w/ the following subscriptions: Washington Post, Financial Times & The Economist.
  • lawgimenez 4y ago
    If I may ask why Washington Post? I’m starting to like their news coverage though seems lacking on the opinion and newsletters department.
    • umeshunni 4y ago
      That's a good thing, right?
    • gaws 4y ago
      What's "lacking" on the opinion and newsletters?
• bluenose69 4y ago
  TheGuardian.com is worth it, in my opinion. It's not expensive, and it gives world news, not just national news. The proofreading on the website is not impressive, though, compared with the weekly paper version (to which I also subscribe). I've also had WP and NYT subscriptions, and I think these are fine choices. One thing, though: I found it quite difficult to cancel my NYT subscription. Subscriptions are like hash functions -- easy in one direction and hard in the other.
  • lawgimenez 4y ago
    I can easily cancel on the nytimes.com by going to settings. I’m in Asia though so maybe it is different on your region.
  • msapaydin 4y ago
    I also like "the guardian", it is also less US centered, and has some great coverage of movies and technology ethics). The only catch is that the android subscription is not valid on the computer or any other device than android.
  • omega3 4y ago
    Unfortunately the quality has also gone downhill and they’ve switched from news reporting to pushing an agenda.
    • Veen 4y ago
      It's always had a left-wing angle, but it has become more strident in recent years as the comment section began to dominate. Their straight news reporting is generally pretty good. I read it even though I'm not at all aligned with the politics of many of the writers.
      • the_biot 4y ago
        They did a piece once on a subject with which I'm very familiar (a fairly controversial thing that happened in my city). They asked for feedback from the public at large before publishing it, and I filled out the questionnaire. What came out was a disgrace. Straight up propaganda, writing up only the exact words of the only person they interviewed -- easily the most controversial person in the entire city. But you see, he's far left and entirely in line with The Guardian's agenda. I will never read The Guardian again. It is not a newspaper; it's a propaganda rag of no news value.
• runjake 4y ago
  I'd recommend avoiding the news. As far as I can tell, the news exists to sell ads. That said, if you still want to read the news and have access to an Apple device, why not consider Apple News+? It's just about the only news service I'm aware of where you can cancel your subscription without any hassle and you get multiple news sources to boot. NYT, WSJ, Economist and all the other commonly-recommended news places are a hassle to cancel.
  • sofixa 4y ago
    > I'd recommend avoiding the news. As far as I can tell, the news exists to sell ads The ask in this Ask HN is literally about subscription news, which rarely have ads ( for instance FT do, but they're ads for conferences and stuff they run, so it's kind of acceptable). > That said, if you still want to read the news and have access to an Apple device, why not consider Apple News+? Same with Google News/Play, subscribing/unsubscribing is quite easy.
• chewmieser 4y ago
  Really love the Apple News+ subscription. Includes a ton of content including WSJ. I also subscribe separately to NYT & Washington Post. All great options.
• sgent 4y ago
  I really like Business Week but IDK how hard it is to cancel (have it through Apple News).
• etchalon 4y ago
  I'd recommend the Economist. It's a lot less US centric. It is more expensive.
• gordon_freeman 4y ago
  For daily News: WSJ and NYT For global news: The Economist (simply the best!) For Science news: National Geographic (more on photography and travel side), Scientific American (A little more hard science but especially good to keep up with space related scientific progress)
• tootie 4y ago
  Main ones are NYT and Economist. I don't see how the NYT has gone downhill as much as they have broadened a bit into some less serious stuff. Their mainstream news coverage is still second to none. Otherwise, I lean towards non-profit news like NPR and local affiliates, ProPublica, The Markup, Grist. They all cost nothing, but monthly gifts are accepted.
• gordon_freeman 4y ago
  For anyone claiming NYT quality has gone downhill should try and read this article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/05/08/arts/design/dutch-still-life.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/05/08/arts/design/d... This article has single handedly ignited my interest in arts and paintings. This is just an example but in general what I find great about NYT is the way they do storytelling with mixture of interactive visualization and text-based news and facts.
  • compscistd 4y ago
    I read this article and a week later came across one of his works (with the signature lemon peel!) at the Met. Would not have been able to recognize him without it. I love how the NYT experiments with different mediums, like their weekly friday news quiz, their stellar cooking app, the crosswords, and now these little art explorations
  • hangonhn 4y ago
    Their tech is quite decent and open source too: https://github.com/nytimes https://github.com/nytimes I think the BBC does something similar as well: https://github.com/bbc/ https://github.com/bbc/
  • jumelles 4y ago
    NYT's visual journalism team is top-notch.
  • pranshum 4y ago
    This was great! IMO the NYT really shines with their arts/culture sections! Makes the subscription worth it for me personally. I do feel like their politics/opinion sections have gone downhill. But every now and then they do a long-form article which convinces me to re-subscribe for a year. This one was incredible: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/world/asia/the-jungle-prince-of-delhi.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/world/asia/the-jungle-pri...
  • jonplackett 4y ago
    Really enjoyed that! Thanks! I already subscribe to NYT and this makes me feel good about it.
• Melatonic 4y ago
  I really like subscribing to the actual Sunday delivery of a physical paper. Choose your poison. Go read it at a local coffee shop or farmers market or something and then watch as people everywhere look at you like your some kind of crazy person. Old people love it though - plus you can give it to someone else once your done! Also when was the last time you read The Funnies?
• n8cpdx 4y ago
  +1 Economist - When they cover something I’m knowledgeable about, they get the facts right, so I trust them in other areas - App lets me listen to the weekly edition read by humans - Only comes out weekly (so no daily bullshit treadmill, and they have time to get things right) - Genuinely useful and interesting info. Since I switched from NYT to the Economist it’s like I have supernatural powers to see into the future; nothing surprises me anymore. Recent issues where I knew what was coming months to weeks before others: COVID, post-COVID inflation, Ukraine I listened to the podcasts for months before paying to subscribe, and the podcasts (The Intelligence and Economist Asks are favorites) cover some of the content of the weekly edition. If you like the podcasts, you’ll love the genuine article.
  • skrebbel 4y ago
    Same, I subscribed a few months ago and i think it's pretty amazing. Esp the weekly cadence: turns out that being up to a week behind on major news items is quite the blessing. More often than not, the dust will have settled and the Economist can write a balanced analysis.
  • cranekam 4y ago
    Another +1. Although I don’t necessarily believe neoliberalism is the best thing ever at least the Economist doesn’t hide its editorial stance and generally supports regulation where it’s needed. And there is plenty of really good content (book reviews, science/tech, coverage of Russia-Ukraine war) that doesn’t have a political skew one might dislike.
  • ghaff 4y ago
    For a general news pub, either The Economist or the New York Times. They have pros and cons depending upon what you're interested in. Both of them are a bit rich for my blood given that they're mostly competing for a fixed amount of bandwidth on my part. Personally, at the moment, I get the NYT (I've had The Economist in the past) but it's a fairly close call.
  • whitesilhouette 4y ago
    Is also recommend Bloomberg to go with the Economist subscription. It has all the right ingredients to keep you on top of all worthwhile news.
• jeramey 4y ago
  If you're in the Apple ecosystem, subscribing and unsubscribing to several of these news sources, so long as you read them in Apple's News app, becomes a lot easier, though it can be more expensive than going direct to the publisher. But hey, you get dark mode! And no major hassle when you want to stop a subscription! As far as quality of news, I'd echo the sentiment others have given that Wall Street Journal's factual reporting is stellar, but their opinion and editorial pieces leave a lot to be desired. I'd say the same about The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. The Atlantic is decent for thoughtful editorials as can be The New Yorker, but honestly, you're just going to run into some sensationalism and knee-jerk, politically-motivated slant no matter what editorial/opinion sources you choose, so caveat emptor.
  • heretogetout 4y ago
    It's too bad the Apple news app is so user hostile. If you block a news source they don't remove it from any grids, they just hide images and text and replace it with something saying you've blocked the source. I block a lot of sources so it gets ugly fast.
    • al_borland 4y ago
      I blocked a news source and I still see it in the Top Stories area all the time. It made me wonder what the point was. It also bombarde me with celebrity gossip I don’t care about. I’ve started hitting the button to hide certain topics, but I’m always hesitant. I don’t need to know every time Will Smith posts a tweet, but if he slaps Chris Rock in the middle of an award show, I’d be interested in that. Apple News seems to have trouble surfacing just the big stuff I might care about. That being said, I do like they it gives me access to the WSJ.
  • solution-finder 4y ago
    I agree! I have subscribed before to NYT, Economist using Apple’s subscriptions and therefore never had any issues in unsubscribing, or needing to call somebody to unsubscribe.
• sdsaga12 4y ago
  This all depends on how you're approaching the question. Why do you want to read the news? What do you hope to get out of it? You're absolutely right that the NYT has changed in recent years, but that change has been part of systemic shifts that have affected all of journalism as it existed before the internet. For most outlets, "the news" is now substantially more infotainment and in-group sermonizing than it used to be. Buzzfeed-y clickbait and Facebook-y rageporn juice engagement numbers like little else. Competition for your attention online is fierce and, with access to alternatives at the click of a button, audiences have very little appetite to continue reading an outlet that publishes things they don't agree with. Are you looking to stay abreast of conversational topics in certain social circles? Are you looking for high-quality information that will help you form more accurate predictions about the world? If so, what types of predictions are most important to you? Economic? Social? Political? Do you like your facts presented in an editorialized fashion or do you want events to be reported without being nudged to feel one way or another about them? Do you just want a news source that provides fun stuff to read? Do you read the news because you're not very into sports and books are too long? (I've been there in life.) How important are polish and sleek UIs to you? Do you want to read content that goes down easy or do you want to survey a broad set of views on subjects to know what other people are thinking even if some of that makes you angry or confused? This is maybe not quite what you're looking for, but I'd use this decision as an opportunity to step back and reflect on the bigger question of why you want a subscription to a news publication in the first place. Once you have the answer to some of those questions, that should help narrow down your search. If you're interested in some articles that further reflect on changes in the news, I'd recommend these two: https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/its-all-just-displacement https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/its-all-just-displaceme... and https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news-is-americas-new-religion https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news-is-americas-new-relig...
• sofixa 4y ago
  Another vote for FT ( Financial Times). Pricey, but reporting is good and covers a vast arrays of topics and geos ( i can read about FC Barcelona's financial troubles, the fall of the latest Bulgarian cabinet and why that's going to end bad, an investigative report about fraud in Wirecard, etc. and it will be in decent depth), is factually correct and gets updated when it isn't.
  • pottertheotter 4y ago
    I really like the FT. If someone is considering the WSJ, I’d highly recommend getting FT instead. I had access to both while working at a hedge fund and read them both all the time, but much preferred FT.
• beardyw 4y ago
  Guardian. Amazing value.
• Apreche 4y ago
  The ones that are the most worth-it tend to be trade publications. Of course, they are only worth it to people who are in that particular industry.
• danieldevries 4y ago
  Financial Times
• pneumatic1 4y ago
  The Economist and only read the print edition.
• pyrophane 4y ago
  Financial Times Economist NY Times (I disagree that it has gone downhill) The New Yorker
• zendaven 4y ago
  I am very happy with https://newsasfacts.com/ https://newsasfacts.com/. It helps me to catch up on global events in usually under a minute.
  • lagrange77 4y ago
    Interesting! They have a nice logo btw.
• Goosee 4y ago
  If you own apple devices try Apple News+ Here are the included publications: https://www.apple.com/apple-news/publications/ https://www.apple.com/apple-news/publications/
• AdmiralAsshat 4y ago
  Anyone aware of any news or magazines subscriptions that distribute their issues with EPUB as an option? I like to do my reading on a Kobo, and EPUB is supposed to be the standard for such things, even though it seems like 95% of magazines use a Kindle format or a PDF for their digital stuff. The only publication I'm aware of was Linux Journal back in the day, but it's gone now.
  • Mezzie 4y ago
    Have you considered setting up Calibre to automatically fetch and convert articles?
    • AdmiralAsshat 4y ago
      I mean, I could probably use Pocket for that, which Kobo already integrates with. It seems to do a decent job of getting stuff from behind the paywall. But no, I don't want to setup a Calibre workflow because I don't want my Kobo flooded with the stuff. If we estimate 15-18 articles per normal issue, that's 18 distinct files that Calibre would pull down instead of just one EPUB that I can read and discard when I'm done with it.
• awillen 4y ago
  I recommend Axios - the have a number of free, topic-specific daily newsletters. They're quick reads and well put together, and they usually link out to more detailed reporting on stuff that merits further reading.
• jlbbellefeuille 4y ago
  I like The Information. https://www.theinformation.com https://www.theinformation.com I have been intrigued by Axios.
• masterof0 4y ago
  Maybe not what OP is looking for, but for folks who can't afford news subscriptions I would recommend (https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome).
• techgnosis 4y ago
  I live in Seattle and pay for The Seattle Times. Anyone who can afford their local paper should probably subscribe. I learn a lot about how Seattle works from the paper. You can get federal news anywhere, that is boring. Make sure you are informed about local and state issues.
  • pionar 4y ago
    Yes, I live outside of Detroit, have been here for 7 years, and have learned just so much more about the city since I started subscribing to the Detroit Free Press late last year.
  • WalterBright 4y ago
    The ST reprints a lot of NYT articles for their non-local news. Too bad they never reprint WSJ articles.
  • strongpigeon 4y ago
    I cancelled my Seattle Times subscription since the ads on their site are garbage. From the full page red and yellow "Video Only!" ads to some that would redirect to some scam site on mobile without clicking. After complaining repeatedly by email I decided to vote with my wallet and called to unsubscribe. They did their whole retention spiel and said I should just use an ad blocker on their site... Some of the local coverage was good, but I prefer even more focused coverage like CHS Blog/The Urbanist/Seattle Transit Blog and Geekwire.
    • abnercoimbre 4y ago
      I know paper is old-school, but it's a lot easier to ignore the ads there, so I pay for the Sunday paper. > Some of the local coverage was good, but I prefer even more focused coverage like CHS Blog/The Urbanist/Seattle Transit Blog and Geekwire. Are these all Seattle-centered? Which of these do you recommend the most?
      • strongpigeon 4y ago
        Pretty much all Seattle centered except maybe Geekwire that’s a bit broader. If you live in Capitol Hill, then CHS blog is by far the one I’d recommend the most
• insickness 4y ago
  Ground (https://ground.news/ https://ground.news/) attempts to deliver news while allowing readers to compare how media outlets with different political ideologies are covering stories.
  • KennyBlanken 4y ago
    Looking down the list of a lot of the news sources they cover, I don't see much coverage of mainstream US press - or mainstream world press for that matter. and I do see a massive number of sites I don't recognize the name of. Quite strange. Catholic News Agency somehow isn't tagged "right", ditto for "The Catholic Telegraph"
• WalterBright 4y ago
  I let my NYT subscription lapse because their articles were clearly pushing an agenda rather than reporting the news. I now subscribe to the WSJ. That way I can get the business and financial news I'm interested in by people who are educated in business and finance, rather than activism.
  • zavertnik 4y ago
    > I now subscribe to the WSJ. That way I can get the business and financial news I'm interested in by people who are educated in business and finance, rather than activism. I don't think that's a fair characterization of NYT. I'm curious if you're putting NYT's reporting and NYT's op-eds into the same bucket. > I let my NYT subscription lapse because their articles were clearly pushing an agenda rather than reporting the news. There aren't many large publications that publish w/o an angle, whether that effort is in the name of truthiness or personal gain is difficult to discern. In my opinion, the only solution to the 'getting unbiased news consistently' problem is solved with news aggregations. Looking at the diff between the major publications on any specific story may not reveal which angle/agenda is the most true, but it will reveal the variables that are being used to steer the ship.
    • WalterBright 4y ago
      I can distinguish the news articles from the op-ed ones. The news articles were horribly slanted. Just their choice of words for the headline made it glaringly obvious that their news articles were opinion pieces. They didn't even try. I know the WSJ is biased, too. But their headlines tend to be neutral.
    • shrimp_emoji 4y ago
      https://youtu.be/ozg7gEchjuM?t=106 https://youtu.be/ozg7gEchjuM?t=106
  • gaws 4y ago
    > I let my NYT subscription lapse because their articles were clearly pushing an agenda rather than reporting the news. Are you sure you weren't reading something from the Opinion section?
• verdverm 4y ago
  NASA Spaceflight on YT, all things space news https://www.youtube.com/c/NASASpaceflightVideos https://www.youtube.com/c/NASASpaceflightVideos
• somberi 4y ago
  I subscribe to : The Economist The Guardian (voluntary) Financial Times Barron’s WSJ Cook’s Illustrated NY Times Bloomberg I find each of them useful in their own way.
• nathancahill 4y ago
  A lot of the suggestions here are for USA national or local regional news. For international news, Foreign Policy (foreignpolicy.com) is excellent. It avoids the "Breaking News" noise trap and instead explains the context and significance of world events. Largely apolitical with a slight slant of liberal internationalism.
• nomilk 4y ago
  None. I set up shell twitter accounts for each issue I'm interested in, follow all the relevant people, take a month or so to adjust by deleting irritating flame baiters and accumulate a few sharers of high quality information. Twitter's algorithm recommends a bunch of similar content, but because I only follow one issue per twitter account, it's all (or mostly) on topic, without distractions. Use web archive to get around paywalls, uBlock Origin to remove the irrelevant parts of the twitter web UI, and Video Speed Controller to quickly watch video content at 2, 3, or 4x speed. This gives a quick, easy, and extremely effective way to scan important info on a topic. Since many "news" sites get their material from social media anyway, you just get the "news" a little earlier than everyone else by going to source. It's more cumbersome than Zite (remember that?), but very effective. For this to work you must be ruthless about navigating around attention sinks (like worthless twitter squabbles).
  • bergenty 4y ago
    Why would some random internet user have better news than literal companies dedicated to it? This sounds more like you’re creating a misinformation bubble rather than objective information.
    • nomilk 4y ago
      50-100 good sources on a topic is arguably a lot more expertise than most newsrooms have available, especially if they’re approximately single topic tweeters, and considering they probably aren’t only tweeting their own original thoughts but also providing other ideas (e.g. articles, videos etc) by others. Presuming the minds you follow have the same concern (to take on uncomfortable, ambiguous, and challenging ideas), then the approach is already far ahead of virtually all publications I’m aware of, including the most upvoted ones on this thread (economist, for example), since they all have problems too: revenue incentives for one, which shapes what they can and cannot report on, a need to produce content to fill pages (e.g. manufacturing drama), bias towards sensational but unimportant topics etc. Also, Twitter is somewhat self regulating, at least, more so than “news” sites. Since an author of a news article may face little backlash for biased or wrong information, whereas on Twitter it takes only a few seconds to get a whiff that something’s not right (scan replies for compelling counter arguments, look who endorses via retweet/like etc).
• redorb 4y ago
  archive.ph
• throw457 4y ago
  Get a library card and most media including newspapers and magazines are free… Libby is also a really great and performant app and on top you get books, audiobooks, some video and audio streaming it’s an incredible value.
• mlinksva 4y ago
  Not a subscription, but in the competition for my time, I like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events -- it fills a similar role for me as the Economist did in another era (I used to read the paper version religiously) -- globalish coverage of important events, some pleasurable idiosyncracies, bias toward Western culture and politics due to language and authors. LWN.net is the only news subscription I can recommend without reservation, but of course it's not general news. :)
• throwaway98797 4y ago
  Wall Street Journal If I had more time I’d do Financial Times as well.
• fullshark 4y ago
  None, there's no reason to follow the news. You're better off reading history books if you want to understand geopolitics / finance / whatever.
  • silisili 4y ago
    I'm pretty close to this myself. I still want to stay up on current events, without opinion pieces, entertainment, and other junk I don't care about. Closest I found was turning on Bloomberg for an hour or two in the morning randomly, but wish there was a print/site like that.
    • ThunderSizzle 4y ago
      How do you know Bloomberg isn't an opinion piece? Truth is hard to come by these days.
• ricardoplouis 4y ago
  Try to support your local news service first if possible.
• res0nat0r 4y ago
  New Yorker is kind of expensive, but a new issue every week with usually a very interesting and long 10-12 page in depth article is great. I look forward to a new issue arriving in my mailbox every week. The Washington Post is only $5/month if you're an Amazon Prime member.
• aenis 4y ago
  I like bloomberg. Good signal to noise ratio. They generally only cover topics which move money markets, and thus have a real impact on me. Its not cheap but aside from HN thats my only source of news for a better part of a decade.
  • justsomehnguy 4y ago
    > Good signal to noise ratio Honest question: did SuperMicro microchips story [pun intended] moved the marked measurable for you?
    • aenis 4y ago
      Yeah, I remember that one - but to be honest, those kind of fck ups dont happen to them very often. I am still wondering how did that happen. I also dont remember any story that they would get so factually wrong in about a decade of reading them daily.
• achow 4y ago
  Perhaps unrelated.. Is theinformation.com really worth it for $33/month? They seem to publish tech stories which do not appear anywhere else.
• bergenty 4y ago
  The NY Times. I get annoyed with their obviously feminist agenda in some articles but I just skip those. Their methodology is stellar though and the articles are well researched and in-depth.
  • gaws 4y ago
    > I get annoyed with their obviously feminist agenda in some articles but I just skip those. Interesting. Do you have links to examples?
• Tepix 4y ago
  Are you willing to look beyond US issues? Check out Le Monde Diplomatique https://mondediplo.com/ https://mondediplo.com/
  • lawgimenez 4y ago
    Thanks! Yes I am more interested in geopolitics and long reads. Let me check it out.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• tacker2000 4y ago
  I read the Financial Times and The Economist. I think they are pretty well researched without leaning in a specific direction too much. The comments on FT are also mostly very civil, with good discussion. The Guardian is “intelligent” but is way too blatantly leftist, to get any sort of balanced information.
  • nindalf 4y ago
    Seconding the Economist. When I read it, I find I can stay in the loop without having to follow the news daily. A weekly high level summary is good enough for me.
  • rupi 4y ago
    Second both FT and The Economist. You can get by just with the Economist if you are happy with it being a weekly. Both FT and Economist are very good at not including any fluff, in the language they use and in the content itself.
    • tl_donson 4y ago
      the FT has probably the best info:word count ratio of any daily publication i’ve ever read
  • jmfldn 4y ago
    Everything is biased. I quite like The Economist but it's liberal, "markets first", stance is just as much an ideology as anything The Guardian espouses. Its trick is to make itself seem above the fray, offering a god's eye dispassionate opinion. It is clever marketing and presentation. I rate it for world affairs and it is a good news source. I just think it gets undue levels of praise.
  • cpursley 4y ago
    This, the financial focused papers have to at least be somewhat honest in their reporting as investors and other business folks depend on their reporting. Vs advocacy of whichever social/political/etc issue is currently in vogue.
• o_nate 4y ago
  I still subscribe to NY Times online, but in the past couple of years I added a paper subscription to the FT, even though I'm in the US, and it tends to be a bit UK-centric. The paper subscription is their cheapest option, otherwise I would've gone with online. I actually read more news from the FT than the Times now, even though it tends to be about a day late, due to printing/editorial cycle etc, but I find it covers more of what I'm interested in. YMMV
• Komodai 4y ago
  None.
• someluccc 4y ago
  Financial Times is #1 by far. WSJ is a good second option. Perhaps subscribe with a virtual card you can cancel?
• azalemeth 4y ago
  If you want something very British, Private Eye is an absolute blast. It's only available in dead-tree form and has a lot of real, high quality investigative journalism sprinkled in amongst the cartoons and satire. You can get a fairly good idea if you'll like it from their website [1]. The podcast, Page 94, is also excellent [2] and is sparsely updated, but they do good things when it is. For an example of the "WTFBBQ" stories they cover, have a look at "The Snooty Fox" episode [3], which covers the rather horrid tale of a pub landlord who pissed off a council member by accidentally overcharging her, and ended up punitively investigated by the food standards people, bankrupted and quite literally imprisoned for several years. He finally secured justice after more than 20 years when the council authority ceased to exist (and its successor apologised hugely and unreservedly – his convictions were quashed and later counter-sued for £14m [4]). One other thing – cancelling the subscription is trivial. [1] https://www.private-eye.co.uk/ https://www.private-eye.co.uk/ [2] https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast [3] https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/68 https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/68 [4] https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1547675/pub-landlord-the-snooty-fox-fine-council-jail https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1547675/pub-landlord-the-s...
  • remus 4y ago
    Another vote for the eye. It's amazing the number of stories that first appear there before being picked up by larger outlets years later. The post office scandal is a prime example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal
  • billfruit 4y ago
    LRB perhaps as well.
• yakak 4y ago
  I found PressReader's offer pretty interesting and would probably be using its premium plan if I were seriously going to read 1-2 papers on an average day to be able to regularly try out different sources. Buying individual papers on it seemed a bit expensive but is better than going a-la-carte on individual sites and needing to avoid the resulting spam, etc.
• binbag 4y ago
  The Financial Times is really good. It's not just about finance, don't worry. It's the most balanced and informative news source I've ever read. It's a little expensive but it's worth it. Been a subscriber for about 3 years now.
• t0bia_s 4y ago
  I personaly quit reading any news. Those really important gets to me from differnet sources (friends or here on HN). I rather invest my time to read articles on various topics, philosophy, art... RSS helps to get feed of very interesting ideas.
• Bhurn00985 4y ago
  Le Monde Diplomatique is in my opinion the best for in-depth quality journalism.
• Havoc 4y ago
  I like FT and economist for the podcasts. Between them they push out just enough podcast for me to listen to everything and have it not be overwhelming in volume.
• wolverine876 4y ago
  > I’m not sure if anyone noticed but NYTimes’ quality has gone downhill for the past 2-3 years This has been said every year for my entire life. I would keep the NY Times, but also: * The Financial Times is on the NY Times level IMHO, but far more expensive * The Wall Street Journal is published by the same people behind Fox News. It's Fox News for the elite - framed in ways appealing to them, and trading on an old established brand. Same results, IME. * The Economist can be fantastic in terms of knowledge gained / minute. It's ideologically free-market - applying that tool to every situation. And it's not actually journalism, it's analysis: They generally don't dig up stories, interview people, etc. They summarize and analyze. * The Washington Post is nearly on the NYT level, IMHO. * Maybe The Guardian? That's it. Nothing else worth paying for (in English).
  • coward123 4y ago
    The editorial / opinion pages of both NYT and WaPo ruined them for me. Thinking people want to read provocative, thoughtful perspectives that may challenge them, but the people and the positions in those pages are by and large, utter trash. Notice I didn't say anything about politics of left or right - I think there's trash there of both sides. We're talking people who are not good writers, who add nothing to public discourse, and who I would say spread a lot of at best half-truths and ill-informed ideas. So, I can't see paying for either one even though at least some of the journalism outside those sections is at least ok. Frankly, I think they both ride their past reputations and the fact they have survived by being in major urban centers while their past competitors (IE: small town newspapers, etc) have died.
    • xref 4y ago
      The WSJ has equally horrid opinion pages, as does my local paper. Editorial sections are basically trash in general, avoid them like the plague and your experience will be much better. Editorial sections are “clickbait” even before that was a thing. They’ve always existed to fire people up and sell papers.
      • coward123 4y ago
• robwwilliams 4y ago
  Killed the NYT and added Foreign Affairs. Focus is on non-ephemeral news. Longer pieces than the Economist but at about the same depth.
• xref 4y ago
  Ars Technica is only $25/yr and has a lot of deep knowledge on specific topics
  • LilBytes 4y ago
    Surprised I had to scroll so far to see Ars here. I'm a subscriber too.
• calderwoodra 4y ago
  I subscribe to The New Paper, it's good enough to stay up to date while still being concise and non-partisan 99/100 times.
• mancerayder 4y ago
  I canceled the NYT about two years ago when I felt the paper took what seemed like a closed-minded and inflammatory turn in order to 'take a stand' and appeal to its subscribers. I don't care how cheap it got, I could no longer support a paper like that (after many years of doing so). I try to stick to the financial press since the financial press has an interest in objective facts at least some of the time, since its readers use the information to inform investment decisions. WSJ and Bloomberg. I had an FT subscription, which I think is much better than the previous two (especially for international news and commentary), but it's also quite pricey.
• baby_angel 4y ago
  The guardian and NPR (they're free)
• alexalx666 4y ago
  Opening front pages of Bloomberg, FT and WSJ will give you pretty good picture of what’s going on for free
• andsoitis 4y ago
  Axios. Free. More objective than most.
• PopAlongKid 4y ago
  No mention so far of any weekly newsmagazines. TIME is from the old school and not very good for actual news these days, but decades ago it was much better. Also, The Week is a well-edited digest of the best of U.S and international news sources, albeit with a U.S. liberal slant at times. And no ads, except maybe inside front & back covers.
• crossroadsguy 4y ago
  I used to subscribe to Newsweek when it was marketed and printed in India and at non-USD prices. Tried New Yorker as well. Slowly it started becoming apparent they’re just American magazines mostly only about America somehow or the other and Newsweek stopped India print operations anyway. Now it’s just Caravan monthly, Outlook weekly (Indian magazines). Biblio (Indian book review magazine). I only read printed news. It’d be nice to subscribe to a few (better) International printed magazines. The ones that really covers the globe.
• wdr1 4y ago
  I was a longtime NYT subscriber who cancelled a few years ago. I switched to the WSJ & have been pretty happy with it.
• billfruit 4y ago
  A recent post here a few weeks before gave me the impression that LRB subscription is quite worthwhile. Not exactly the "news" though.
• Gortal278 4y ago
  WSJ! Subscribe through your app store of choice and you can cancel on the app store listing page of choice.
• jokethrowaway 4y ago
  Standard journalism is often lacking in details. I don't think they're worth a subscription. I think you'll get more in depth news by subscribing to politicised commentators, possibly on both sides of the spectrum. You'll get way more focus on different details (of course to support their point of view) and you'll actually get to experience what newspapers felt like in the 90s, before they turned into left wing outrage and ad click machines. I think this would help you understand where your values lie on any issue and will reduce polarization.
• cosmodisk 4y ago
  Financial Times and Bloomberg. While I'm not a fan,the Economist gives good coverage on global events.
• Aeolun 4y ago
  I pay for a physical copy of the Japan Times and New York Times. They come bundled, but I barely ever read the New York Times. I doubt it is relevant for you, but I’ve been happy with the Japan Times.
• Ir0nMan 4y ago
  WSJ and signup with a privacy.com virtual credit card that you can easily pause/cancel/limit anytime.
• kornhole 4y ago
  Always subscribe with a virtual card with limit such as privacy.com. cancellation is as easy as a click to turn off card. Pay the creators you want to keep creating and pirate the rest. I let you determine who to support. Use bypass paywalls extension or 12ft.io for the rest.
• jyu 4y ago
  there's way too much news in too many categories. i can't spend the necessary amount of time to become an expert in those areas. patreon and substack seem like a decent alternative to support and consume news in niches.