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Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

• redwood 4y ago
  I like Foreign Policy
• xrayarx 4y ago
  Wall Street Journal? It doesn’t have an euro focus though.
• montgomery_r 4y ago
  The Spectator has - generally high quality writing - a quirky (but data driven) approach - a longer history than any other magazine - a UK focus - a right wing bent, but with plenty of left wing ( or apolitical) writers for balance. Might be a solution? I gave up on the Economist after 20years 20 years ago, for much the same reasons you state!
  • pjc50 4y ago
    The Spectator is hyper-partisan nonsense that will make you less well informed. I can't imagine who the "left wing" writers on it are supposed to be?
    • vixen99 4y ago
      With a strong statement like that it would be helpful if you could provide an example or two that makes your point.
    • kolp 4y ago
      >>I can't imagine who the "left wing" writers on it are supposed to be? Rod Liddle - his brain is addled by the booze, but he still manages to phone in a few hundred words each fortnight.
  • nivenkos 4y ago
    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-brexit-looks-like/ https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-brexit-looks-like/ Just objectively that has turned out to be complete nonsense...
    • Tomte 4y ago
      If you insist on "your newspaper" always to be right, you don't have many options, and not for long.
    • sgu999 4y ago
      Any recommendation of a fair description of the impact of Brexit on the UK and why it's not desirable? Asking as an EU citizen who keeps hearing all day how much these Brits are struggling without the rest of us.
      • rjsw 4y ago
        The effects of it are still working through the UK economy. The one group that had a valid, if selfish, reason to vote for it was people in low paid jobs. Employers are complaining that they can't recruit but don't want to increase the pay offered for the posts they can't fill. Lots of strikes planned by groups that have seen their pay fail to keep up with inflation.
• jgrahamc 4y ago
  Are you reading Le Monde Diplomatique in French? If so, you might enjoy Courrier International.
  • anonu 4y ago
    I was a longtime subscriber of Courrier Internationale, in print. The issue is if many articles are originally in English then I feel like they should be read in English to avoid the nuances lost in translation. Second issue was the latency: the translation process first then getting it in print. The topic has to be a bit evergreen otherwise I feel the world has already moved on.
• walthamstow 4y ago
  Guessing you're British or a UK resident? If you're not reading Private Eye already I would highly recommend it.
  • mellosouls 4y ago
    Yeah, Private Eye pretty much the only essential publication in the UK for me.
    • pbhjpbhj 4y ago
      Satire and comedy panel shows (HIGNFY, Mock the Week, Daily Mash, etc.) have been a major source of news and debate for me over the last decade or so. The BBC appear to be reflecting this by cancelling all news related comedy shows on TV -- presumably following pressure from the Tory government? The BBC also appear to have put a month-delay on podcasts which prevents them from helping u inform opinions on recent news. These things limit democracy, IMO. I've found such shows (in the same way as Private Eye) will lampoon anyone and so seem quite well balanced. This all just seems to be one more data point on the chart that shows our UK government to be quite fascist.
      • uncletammy 4y ago
        > The BBC also appear to have put a month-delay on podcasts which prevents them from helping u inform opinions on recent news. Through what mechanism is the BBC able to delay podcasts?
        • toyg 4y ago
          They make it available only on their app for a month, then publish it for everyone. It's just a commercial choice to capture more listeners for their apps.
      • toyg 4y ago
        I believe the podcast delay is just for independent clients - you can still get stuff on they day if you use the BBC Sounds app. It's just a ploy to get more people on their app.
• stranded22 4y ago
  The Week is a bit more balanced- but you might find it better to set up a RSS reader and get info from different sources (I have used Inoreader Pro for a 4-5 years now and love it)
• williamcotton 4y ago
  What narrative manipulation have you seen from The Economist? I haven’t noticed it so perhaps I am being manipulated! I’d love to hear your insight!
  • pjc50 4y ago
    The Economist has always, since its foundation, been capital-L Liberal. That's the lens through which everything is written. Knowing that informs you about the selection of topics they cover and the angles they will take. It doesn't make it bad - I read it for years although gave up mid-2010s - but it can be quite predictable. It's still capable of producing very high quality and thoughtful writing, which makes it more annoying when they choose not to. Recommendation: maybe the FT?
    • williamcotton 4y ago
      I’m very aware of political and economic lens of The Economist as I’ve been a subscriber for over two decades. I haven’t noticed a change other than a bit of a shift leftwards since Zanny became editor-in-chief, but I don’t mind one bit, as they haven’t lost the writers that promote classical liberalism, just added a bit of an internal critique of some aspects of academic economics. But I’m very open to the idea that I’m missing something… especially since I’m such a fanboy!
      • ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        I stopped regularly reading it a while back, but the articles I end up on seem to indicate a shift to addressing a USA libertarian audience rather than a previous economics-led but with some shred of humanity. That may just be selection bias of the articles I read.
  • PedroBatista 4y ago
    From what I've casually noticed, in recent years they declared the EU dead at least 4 or 5 times and the bias towards some kind of Liberal US/UK lead/controlled World is clear. They are liberal and anglo, so of course the bias is there ( also smug, but that's pretty much since their beginnings) , but they try to pass their views as fact, meaning: "There's chat going around, this is what the reality is and will be.." They ( as many others ), didn't view Ukraine fighting back and Western help as a good thing, Ukraine capitulation was "the right thing to happen" because for them Russia controlling Ukraine was a "fact of life". All this while their authors try to project an image of unmatched economic prowess but also rock-solid morals..
• twoslide 4y ago
  I think others have given good recommendations, but will add the Atlantic and New Yorker. Also agree that a problem with The Economist is that it is always overtly pushing a particular view of the view world (rooted in a faith in the rationality of markets), which is coupled with fairly strong advice/prescriptions in much of the writing.
  • esperent 4y ago
    I kinda have the exact same experience with The Atlantic as OP does with The Economist. I used to read it regularly but now it feels there's 5% good articles and 95% some kind of highbrow clickbait. On the front page now: 1. Seven books that will make you smarter 2. Whoops, I Deleted My Life 3. How Much Would You Pay to Save Your Cat’s Life? 4. The Strength of the ‘Soft Daddy’ 5. The Black Investors Who Were Burned by Bitcoin Etc. These don't sound like articles that are worth my time. I did persevere with reading the magazine for quite a while out of habit but by now I'm pretty much convinced that most of these articles will be just as vapid as their titles.
    • bmj 4y ago
      There is a difference in the online content of the Atlantic v. the print magazine. The print magazine still has some high quality content.
      • civilized 4y ago
        Don't they ultimately publish the same stuff in both? I would definitely appreciate a quality/triviality filter though, maybe the print is the only way to get it.
        • chipotle_coyote 4y ago
          I think that everything that's in print is available on the web site, but there are also web-only things, so the print magazine may be a bit of a "quality/triviality filter" in that regard. I like The Atlantic in general, although I think they have a bit of what I sometimes call a "contrarian bias", e.g., prioritizing "the conventional wisdom is X, but here's why it's wrong" think-pieces even when their theses aren't particularly strong. (Slate and Salon were much worse about that in their heyday.)
• Moissanite 4y ago
  I enjoy the Economist (haven't noticed any change in quality), and if I had time for a second source I would probably be leaning towards the New Statesman. I somewhat foolishly subscribed to the New European after learning about it on "The Rest is Politics" (podcast with Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell); it is unashamedly far-left and mostly just full of rants - so I wouldn't recommend that.
• beginning_end 4y ago
  FT is good and seems to be getting better.
• shia 4y ago
  I was in a similar place, an Economist subscriber, that stopped ~5yrs ago due to a decrease in writing quality. I switched to: Financial Times - lead newspaper into Wirecard scandal Süddeutsche Zeitung (in German) - famed for Panama Papers investigation I complement it with readings from: IEEE Spectrum (Science & Tech) The Markup (Society)
• pandakar 4y ago
  Always been a fan of Harper's for a more left/artistic perspective.
• BrandonS113 4y ago
  I go through cycles with the Economist, months when I can't stand it, and months when I read most pieces. Think it is me and the Economist. That said, I have not found any consistently better alternative in English or any of the other languages, so guess I am a lifer. But, I don't read pieces on current news in places I know well. My favorite section is letters to the editor. Like every time there is a piece on Singapore, the high commissioner will complain in the next issue.
• nivenkos 4y ago
  All of them have sunken to clickbait articles and titles IMO - case in point: https://www.ft.com/content/5a8d439b-da0f-41c0-9e6b-e857a75c2a30 https://www.ft.com/content/5a8d439b-da0f-41c0-9e6b-e857a75c2... (although the article itself is alright, even if quite brief). I think you're better off just getting access to specific long read articles when they're released.
• jll29 4y ago
  Very timely question, I just purchased an issue of the Economist because I was toying with the idea of re-instating a previously held subscription. I share the disappointment. In the past, even just the book reviews were so good that they "forced" me to buy 2-3 of the reviewed books; that issue didn't intrigue me. I don't have an answer whether it's a general trend or not, as I'm trained not to ascribe too much weight to a sample of size N=1. There's probably nothing better regardless, but I, for one, would like to see an alternative that is at the same quality level as the Economist (but with more neutral reporting and individual author names given) and an even wider scope (health, science, society, technology, geopolitics, finance, law, ...). I subscribed the Guardian for one year just to avoid that it goes down (I could read it for free at work), and of course it is excellent, but it has a tacit pro-UK bias that brits (esp. leftists) wouldn't even notice. On the other hand they have excellent reporting and do not refrain from the most challenging topics like the Snowdon revelation (first published by The Guardian's New York office, for legal - freedom of speech - reasons). Germany has Der Spiegel, France has Le Monde Diplomatique, but I think only the latter is available in English (I read German). I would also enjoy paying for a single subscription that gave me online access to several of these top-tier magazine for a single flat-rate monthly or annual subscription price.
  • nerdawson 4y ago
    > …would like to see an alternative that is at the same quality level as the Economist (but with more neutral reporting and individual author names given)… More publications should remove the byline. Individual attribution incentivises journalists to try and stand out which typically means making intentionally inflammatory statements.
    • dpacmittal 4y ago
      Interesting, my first thought was that attribution will add accountability and authors would be more careful of their words.
      • pjc50 4y ago
        The Times columnist who got cited in two mass shooter manifestos as an inspiration is still working.
• jakozaur 4y ago
  I am long-time fun of Economist, but unfortunately the quality decreases. E.g. last issue EU is frozen and claim so many people will die in Europe due to high energy prices. First, I find they did not explain their model well. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Second, the correlation does not imply causation or whether extrapolations are solid. It looks like there might be mistakes on that front and there are many spurious correlations (e.g. high energy in the past might mean high unemployment). Third, so far the country experiencing freezing is the Ukraine due to power outages. Just one sentence mentioning, whether in Ukraine for sure many people are going to die due to distrusted power, heating or water supplies. So far on general economics, I love: https://noahpinion.substack.com/ https://noahpinion.substack.com/ Though, it is hard for me to find comprehensive Economist replacement.
  • izacus 4y ago
    Economist usually has some seriously bizarre articles about EU with a massive pro-USA bias when attempting any analysis. That ultimately made me stop reading it since it's not a very useful viewpoint if you actually live in Europe.
    • skrebbel 4y ago
      Any examples? I'm a European with a pretty chauvinistic pro-EU meh-USA attitude and I've never found the Economist's Europe section to be "bizarre" (been reading for about a year)
  • MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
    Interesting, on Twitter Noah Smith has become a laughing stock. I will say that generally, non-print media like Substack, personal blogs and Twitter can be a much higher quality replacement. Requires a little digging though.
    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
      I've found the opposite. Print media publications seem to be higher quality with better editorial review. There are of course exceptions and outstanding blogs out there. I've seen some reporters go from working at a "big" publisher to Substack and I can tell the difference in their writing. Usually more extreme and alarmist. I chalk it up to less review.
• Emigre_ 4y ago
  I think Le Monde Diplomatique could be a good choice
  • sgu999 4y ago
    Not sure what it's worth in English but the French version is indeed very good. My only complain is that they are sometimes a bit too complacent with US rivals and competitors.
• Lapalux 4y ago
  The FT is excellent, particularly online.
• fergie 4y ago
  Big fan of the Spectator and the Guardian Weekly: They the best exponents of right and left wing thinking from the UK respectively. For best results read both.
  • mellosouls 4y ago
    I really like this mixed spectrum suggestion; it seems rare these days for people to do that, but perhaps I'm cynical and taking too much from online shouty types.
• pron 4y ago
  Though American and generally US-focused, The Atlantic covers a lot of world affairs, although it isn't as news-rich as The Economist.
  • eatonphil 4y ago
    The Atlantic's front page is so often covered with outrage pieces I decided to stop looking at it. It felt like they were constantly spinning stories to be fearmongering or anger mongering. There are good reasons out there to fear or be angry about but I just had to stop with The Atlantic. They do still have some great posts. I just avoid reading their homepage and only go there if linked to a post.
• corbet 4y ago
  I bailed on the Economist a couple of years ago after at least a couple decades...thought I was the only one who felt it had declined. I haven't really found a good replacement still. If nothing else, the pain they put me through to end the subscription was enough to prevent me from ever signing up again.
  • abm53 4y ago
    Their “customer retention” process is extremely aggressive, even by most traditional print publications’ standards.
    • bifftastic 4y ago
      I have recently bailed too - I was subjected to multiple exit interviews when cancelling my subscription (two online and one over the phone). This certainly put me right off resubscribing at any point in the future.
    • tibbetts 4y ago
      I canceled recently and had to escalate to “I have told you to cancel three times and if you cannot cancel now I will have to dispute the charges with my credit card company.”
      • atmosx 4y ago
        Been there. It's not just the economist, most services that include the node "Send an email to unsubscribe" are a problem for me. I'm paying everyone via paypal and just cancel the paypal subscription without ever bothering replying to any email. That works wonders :-)
    • mejutoco 4y ago
      You should see the unsubscribe process of FAZ and SZ in Germany. It is like signing up to a gym or a phone contract. FAZ does not even accept credit cards! they want your IBAN and approval for them to charge you every month (like an utility bill) for one year. Then if you forget to cancel x days in advance it restarts. And wasn't there a law (in EU) that signing up should be as easy and cancelling, if anyone remembers. Most of them allow signup via website but ask you to call to cancel (even after cancelling online, SZ). I say this as a previous subscriber to FAZ, SZ, and the Economist.
• timeon 4y ago
  > Preferably something with a UK/Euro/Global focus, not just US. Probably something that is not in English language, since those usually have huge US or UK focus. (Even news like politico.eu are mostly about UK).
• pbronez 4y ago
  It’s digital only, but https://www.slowernews.com/ https://www.slowernews.com/ is worth a look
• rich_sasha 4y ago
  I haven't seen it mentioned, but whenever I read articles from Foreign Affairs, I'm quite impressed. Though of course the focus is, as you may imagine, foreign affairs... I share your sentiment re Economist.
• fallingupward 4y ago
  Prospect https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/
• jimbobthemighty 4y ago
  Have a look at: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome Any page that needs to be bypassed is worthy of a glance; limiting yourself to just one source runs the risk of 'rose tinted glasses' syndrome.
  • Aromasin 4y ago
    Excellent, thanks for this. If I had the funds, I'd read everything from Adweek to Zeit Online, but paywalls mean I can only pick one or two.
    • UncleSlacky 4y ago
      There's also https://12ft.io/ https://12ft.io/ if that helps.
• specialist 4y ago
  I'm fine with The Economist's Classical Liberal POV (per Adam Smith et al). I unsubscribed become of their support for the Iraq War. (Which admittedly they regretted some years later. But I won't forgive them.) Fortunately, Western media (at least) is flush with Classical Liberal POV. So it's not like I suffered from the omission. As for challenging and interesting and immediately relevant, I keep returning to David Roberts' Volts podcast. Explains where the rubber meets the road on the most important topic of the day, climate crisis. The explainers are just terrific. The episodes about the US's Inflation Reduction Act, the most important industrial policy legislation in a generation, have been illuminating. https://www.volts.wtf https://www.volts.wtf Of course, economics is central to the whole story. As for a non-center-right take on economic issues, I'm enjoying Bethany McLean's work. Most recently her podcast Capitalisn't. https://www.capitalisnt.com https://www.capitalisnt.com (Her cohost Luigi Zingales is mostly a dink, so I speed thru his monologuing.) I haven't really found a leftist economics narrative to consume. Two years ago, I binged on some MMT stuff. Alas, it still feels too fledgling, too exploratory. In short, I'm eager for narratives with some predictive power. I'm almost certain u/dredmorbius can offer awesome recommendations. Their smart about about this kind of stuff. Oh. The books Mine: The Hidden Rules of Ownership and Debt: The First 5000 Years were fun. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54226795-mine https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54226795-mine https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6617037-debt https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6617037-debt Sadly, I haven't gotten to Piketty's books yet.
  • specialist 4y ago
    Oops. *They're smart
• agomez314 4y ago
  WSJ i read everyday and don't feel like i'm grating my brain against unlike other publications
• donpott 4y ago
  Maybe Foreign Policy? Can't say I've read any issues in the past few years, but back when I last read it, it appeared to fit your requisites reasonably well (perhaps a bit too US-centric for your liking). This chart shows FP as a more factual, slightly closer to the Center than The Economist (EDIT: Wrong) https://www.datawrapper.de/_/rrzFK/ https://www.datawrapper.de/_/rrzFK/ Source for the chart: https://www.thefactual.com/blog/is-foreign-policy-magazine-reliable/ https://www.thefactual.com/blog/is-foreign-policy-magazine-r... EDIT: I misunderstood the chart. It shows FP as more factual and slightly more opinionated than The Economist, while labelling both as "Center" (without relative comparisons) ideologically.
  • toyg 4y ago
    > slightly closer to the Center than The Economist. The center of US political debate is significantly to the right of Europe on a large set of topics (from the role of the State in economic matters to global issues like Israel's behaviour).
• james-bcn 4y ago
  I've just renewed my subscription. I haven't found anything better than The Economist. Their daily news summary is great.
• noduerme 4y ago
  I feel like I asked HN the same question about the Economist a couple years ago. I still really appreciate its broad approach to world news and its slanted-but-two-sided view of politics. Honestly the replacement you're looking for to understand international reality is probably some mix of very costly Stratfor briefings and France24 and DW. (Jacobin? seriously? is al Jazeera too well sourced for you?) Internal US politics aren't covered very well by the Economist so you won't be missing to much by switching to this blend, and most US politics can unfortunately be inferred six months in the future by watching other nascent authoritarian states anyway. Wait for it... Dang is gonna ban me again. BUT I'M DRUNK! Damn it.
  • Aromasin 4y ago
    I put the Jacobin there to make it clear I'm open to good writing from anywhere on the political spectrum. I've read some good stuff from them, and drivel in equal measure, but I find the same with the Economist. I'm looking to try something new and I'm not against a socialist perspective. I didn't put Al Jazeera because I would be against an Qatari monarchist perspective.
    • noduerme 4y ago
      I know, but I drew the equivalence because both - like so many propaganda organs of the right, left, monarchists, CCP, putinists or any other set of dishonest shills posing as journalists - share in common the defining feature that nothing they say can be trusted to be objective reporting of fact. A perspective would imply an acknowledgement of an external reality, with objective facts, which might then be open to various arguable interpretations. That's not what's presented by either of those outlets; it is, however, what makes the Economist somewhat interesting. Bending facts, rather than reporting them and then commenting on them, is not "perspective" except in the most recent and/or Orwellian sense of the word.
• temptemptemp111 4y ago
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• bambataa 4y ago
  The Times Literay Supplement is high quality and always interesting. Everything is through the prism of book reviews so perhaps not as much current affairs as you’d like. But still worth looking at.
• 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  > It doesn't align exactly with my political values Which values? I find it to be very analytic and dry in a good way.
  • bitlax 4y ago
    That's the writing style. The choice of topics, point of view, and conclusions drawn at The Economist all show political bias.
    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
      Alright. What's the alternative? Read a multitude of even more biased single point of view blogs?
      • bitlax 4y ago
        Well that's your second bad idea. Keep brainstorming but honestly I'd prefer you kept reading The Economist!
• nitin-pai 4y ago
  The alternative to The Economist is a well curated collection of RSS feeds. Identify a set of intelligent blogs/columnists who post regularly, put their feeds into an OPML file, and you have a great alternative. Added bonus: you can have X and anti-X perspectives for most values of X.
  • dhx 4y ago
    This is the best answer so far. I would add that a researcher/blogger/columnist well versed in the languages/industries/topics they write about, and fusing together and referencing data sources used to form their commentary/view is optimal. For example, the recent Economist article "In Ukraine, living as normal is an act of defiance"[1] presents a view of everyday civilian life in Kyiv but offers no references or links to anything of substance. This article would be much more useful and interesting if it provided references, data (as opposed to anecdotes from interviews of a few people) and visual information at both macro and micro levels. For example, the following types of information could be useful in answering the question of "what is life currently like in Kyiv?": 1. A picture showing the rate of growth of "Point of Unbreakability" sites across Ukraine[2] alongside links to videos of a few sites being toured (to show an example of what they typically look like). 2. A link to daily reports on the Ukraine energy grids[3] and a graphical map of changes in energy availability over time. 3. Recent walking tours of Ukrainian cities. 4. A link to retail pricing and availability of a generator or typical basket of groceries and a graph showing changes over time. Or a video tour of typical supermarkets or retail outlets showing the effect of the war on supply of goods[4][5]. Some journalists at media outlets do provide well researched articles from time to time filled with graphs, maps and tables of data[6] but they still generally don't add references and photos/videos. I find this is particularly true for articles that frustratingly claim "New research from the University of Something shows ..." yet there is no mention of the paper title or link to the article in an open journal. Or any reporting on legislation or legal matters--would it be so difficult to link to case information on a court system, link to a bill presented before parliament, etc? [1] https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/11/23/in-ukraine-living-as-normal-is-an-act-of-defiance https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/11/23/in-ukraine-livin... [2] https://nezlamnist-gov-ua.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://nezlamnist-gov-ua.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_t... [3] https://dixigroup.org/en/analytic/russian-war-against-ukraine-energy-dimension-daily-updating-dixi-group-alert/ https://dixigroup.org/en/analytic/russian-war-against-ukrain... [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzO0ikUcL-c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzO0ikUcL-c [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzsEdRLML5E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzsEdRLML5E [6] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-10-19/maplab-monitoring-the-invasion-of-ukraine-from-outer-space https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-10-19/maplab... (example relating to how some media outlets have been using satellite imagery during the Ukraine war, also see 'Map Links' at the bottom for more examples)
• brylie 4y ago
  What are your thoughts on the journalism in The Atlantic? https://www.theatlantic.com/ https://www.theatlantic.com/
  • Aromasin 4y ago
    I've found it to be pretty on par with the Economist, but more US focused with a bit more clickbait. I've read some great articles on there, but wouldn't be in any rush to subscribe.
  • null0ranje 4y ago
    I’ve let my subscription to the Atlantic lapse. The writing quality and topic selection are closer to a second-tier college newspaper than a serious journalistic publication. Most of their talented contributors are mostly gone, and the current crop of “cool kid” writers seem to just regurgitate what they are following on Twitter.
    • pessimizer 4y ago
      It's yet another news outlet purchased by a tech billionaire. Happened in 2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurene_Powell_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurene_Powell_Jobs She's also been friends and sometimes business partners for decades with Carlos Watson, the guy who perpetrated the OZY fraud. That may help if you want an idea of her taste in, and ability to evaluate the quality of, journalism.
      • kritiko 4y ago
        What are your options to make yourself a going concern as a media company in 2022? Become a tech company, like the NY Times (separate subscriptions for cooking & games, affiliate via Wirecutter, get into podcasts, newsletters, etc.) - they've kind of Buzzfeed-ified themselves. Or get a rich patron. The latter has worked for decades for money-losing conservative journals. (For interesting anecdata about one of them, check out this analysis of Commentary: https://danielstone.substack.com/p/commentary-finances-john-podoretz-salary https://danielstone.substack.com/p/commentary-finances-john-...)
• brylie 4y ago
  Perhaps Mother Jones would be an interesting alternative? https://www.motherjones.com/ https://www.motherjones.com/
  • moolcool 4y ago
    No disrespect to Mother Jones (since they do pretty good reporting), but their editorial voice is pretty far to the left of anything The Economist ever was IMO.
  • itsoktocry 4y ago
    Have you ever read the economist? The content isn't remotely alike (and I'm not even talking about right/left spectrum).
• StevePerkins 4y ago
  What a timely post. My subscription to "The Atlantic" is coming up for renewal in a few months, and I plan to simply let it lapse. That was my last magazine subscription left standing, and 2023 will be the first time in roughly 40 years that I won't be subscripting to any magazines. The writing has always been center-left, but with introspective tendencies. Articles would generally critique conservative political positions, but thoughtfully in a well-reasoned manner. And they would be just as likely to examine excesses from the cultural left also. After Trump entered office, the magazine began a rapid descent. Today you find as much "clickbait" in the printed magazine as you do on the web property (they were previously quite distinct). Articles are frequently hyperbolic, and read like Reddit comments on /r/LateStageCapitalism. But most damningly, the REASONING seems to be gone now. It feels like reading a propaganda outlet. Maybe this is an artifact of emerging authors coming of age during the social media era? Maybe it's a byproduct of print media's financial decline, and pressure to compete with online entertainment? Whatever the case may be, everything feels like a lazy echo chamber now. I dearly miss writing that makes me think.
  • atonse 4y ago
    Are you me? Am I you? Couldn’t have said it better myself. I tend to read authors instead of publications now. Like just about anything by Ed Yong (science), Zeynep Tufekci, Katelyn Jetelina when looking at pandemic related topics. They are objective, thoughtful, compassionate, and well researched. But slowly finding writers like that for other topics. Open to suggestions!
• bifftastic 4y ago
  You could look at the LRB (London Review of Books). While obviously it is mostly book reviews there are other essays in there too. The writing is rather literary, which may or may not be a positive, but it is entirely free of clickbait. It's probably the nearest thing to a left-wing equivalent of The Economist.
• cies 4y ago
  zerohedge.com? /s It'd probably be FT for me, they follow a "just the facts" approach mostly.
• 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  Could you give examples of how quality has declined? I'm scared if a rag like Jacobin is in the running. When people say that the quality of a publication has declined they often mean they disagree with things that are published. Many also say that they seek out blogs and other sources that I assume they agree with. I read these publications because I often disagree with their opinion pieces. It's a value add. Why would I pay to read my own views regurgitated? It's a danger inherent in trying to micromanage and curate a very narrow source of information. You end up only ingesting things that you agree with. My 2 cents. Sorry for the big edit
  • Aromasin 4y ago
    I've discussed how I think the quality has decline elsewhere in the thread, but in short, they flip-flop so as to be on the "correct" side of the conversation too often instead of admitting fault, their UK/EU commentary has been of such a low quality I could find it in a tabloid newspaper if I wanted, and their general Anglo-centric view of the world is not valuable to me explicitly for the reason you describe; I'm British, I don't need more of a pro-UK narrative. I put the Jacobin explicitly because I wanted to make it clear that I'm open to the whole political spectrum. I've read some good articles on there, as well as bad. I'm happy to be convinced out of subscribing to it. I've had a lot of people say it's a rag, but not explain how. Is it because it's poor journalism, or is it because it's socialist? And no, it's not that I'm looking for validation of my own opinions. That's why I've put it out to a forum and not just picked the one most appealing to me.
    • chipotle_coyote 4y ago
      > I've had a lot of people say [Jacobin is] a rag, but not explain how. Is it because it's poor journalism, or is it because it's socialist? Anecdotally, I'm in sympathy with a lot of Jacobin's political viewpoints (even though I'm not as anti-capitalist, or at least anti-market, as they seem to be), but I have a lot of trouble really clicking with their style. They're far more opinion-driven than The Economist or even The Atlantic, and there's what I can only describe as a sneering subtext to much of the work by them I've been pointed to, e.g., "this premise is plainly true to anyone who isn't stupid and/or evil", when I'm sort of mentally raising my hand and going "wait, you are skipping work you really need to dedicate at least a few paragraphs to." It's the leftist version of the feeling I got reading C.S. Lewis decades ago.
• bretpiatt 4y ago
  I find Quillette - https://quillette.com/ https://quillette.com/ very solid, all clear bylines so you can understand the background and perspective of the author.
  • IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
    • bretpiatt 4y ago
      Here's the byline for author from top post on the front page, unclear to me how either of your accusations accurately represents him. https://quillette.com/author/niranjan/ https://quillette.com/author/niranjan/
• kasperset 4y ago
  Another vote for FT (Financial Times). It has good insights not just on economics and politics but also has decent coverage of topics on AI, Travel, and Science.
• FiberBundle 4y ago
  The Financial Times is simply excellent. In my opinion it's substantially better than what even The Economist used to be like ~10 years ago. Almost every article has high quality, there's no clickbait content and the coverage of topics is very appropriate for someone who wants to keep informed on geopolitics and international finance. Though it's not as broad as what The Economist covers, you won't find as much coverage of developing nations.
  • menshiki 4y ago
    I fully agree. Their China and EU coverage is exceptional. I read FT every single day.
• bitlax 4y ago
  In the last few years I've moved away from following large publications and toward following individuals. This keeps the average quality of the content very high and allows me view information that --while accurate-- might not make it past an editorial board.
• gadders 4y ago
  Try the Spectator: https://www.spectator.co.uk/ https://www.spectator.co.uk/
  • youngtaff 4y ago
    It’s as right wing as they come full of writers who somehow feel Brexit was a good idea!
    • gadders 4y ago
      You say that like it's a bad thing. But I would point you to the fact that they have Rod Liddle (lefty/Social Democrat) and Matthew Parris (Tory who hates Brexit) as regular columnists.
• opjjf 4y ago
  I think the only real alternative is the FT. Yes, it's not a weekly but they have lots of in-depth reporting (and the Economist refers to itself as a newspaper anyway).
  • FabHK 4y ago
    If only there were a weekly version of the FT...
• gibsonf1 4y ago
  • erikpl 4y ago
    Media Bias Fact Check describes it as a very right-biased outlet with questionable factuality. They are also categorized as "right-biased" by Ground News, "right-leaning" by AllSides and "far-right" by Wikipedia. Maybe not the best source for neutral and factual news coverage?
    • macintux 4y ago
      The YouTube ads they used to run (maybe still do, I’ve started paying to avoid ads) were painfully partisan.
    • pydry 4y ago
      It's a Falun Gong outlet. Its views are their views. IMHO it never makes sense to measure media's bias from right to left but it makes even less sense when the power center they represent is so obvious. It's like arguing whether RT is conservative because they like Trump or liberal because they are skeptical of Israel. RT is simply pro Russia above all and will turn on a dime on any issue if it serves their core master.
      • gibsonf1 4y ago
        Any hard evidence for the claim that Epoch is a Falun Gong outlet vs. the actual case that its one of the best objective news reporting currently available? For the latter claim, read the stories and compare to the "truth" that eventually comes out on things. They are always reporting factually as it happens, whether they like what happens or not.
    • gibsonf1 4y ago
      Curious about the leanings of the Media Bias Fact Check, Ground News, AllSides and that Wikipedia assessment? Epoch Times is the most objective news outlet I've been able to find - actually reporting the news for what it is. Not censoring out stories it doesn't like, etc. If anyone knows of a more objective outlet, please let me know.
• itsoktocry 4y ago
  >It doesn't align exactly with my political values but I've always found the writing to be of high quality I'm just going to throw it out there that maybe your political values are beginning to overwhelm your other opinions? The Economist's content is unique outside of, maybe, the Financial Times in your list. You're certainly not going to find much similarity with The Jacobin, they're polar opposites politically. The best replacement for The Economist is probably a major newspaper.
  • harvey9 4y ago
    They did indicate that quality of writing is more important than agreeable opinions. I take the same view in subscribing to Private Eye.
• nobita 4y ago
  Curious, have you tried to see where the authors of the articles you like before went? You can always follow them instead of following the publication. If they're still there, then perhaps it's a sign that it's management
  • leoedin 4y ago
    The Economist rarely puts names to articles. They're all written from the same "economist" point of view.
• bitlax 4y ago
  Unless things have changed in the last few years, I'm a bit skeptical of your claim of avid readership if you're referring to The Economist as a magazine and not a newspaper.
• jmyeet 4y ago
  Years ago before electronic devices, The Economist was my "flight fodder" in that I only really bought a copy when I had a long flight and it was long and dense enough that I'd never get through it all. I haven't read it in awhile. It's disappointing to hear the quality has gone down (if true). You're not suggesting otherwise but I feel compelled to mention it anyway for completeness: every publication has a political bent. It's not just the editorials or even the reporting itself but also the choice on what to publish. That's not neccessarily a bad thing unless that political bent means the publication has a tenuous relationship with the truth. I'm curious what political stance you have an issue with, as in are you more left-leaning or right-leaning. The Economist falls into the same bucket I'd put some other long-form print media in like the Atlantic and the New Yorker: it's center-right, specifically neoliberal. That's not necessarily bad. In fact I'd read good content in all 3 of these. You just need to be aware of the lens through which they see the world. The Economist I always found to be pro-Europe (pro-EU and pro-NATO) as one example. Some might object to the "center-right" label here. To me, that's just evidence of how far the pendulum has swung with the Overton Window in how far right-wing politics currently skews, not just in the US. CNN is a center-right media outlet, for example. Coverage of Israel-Palestine is a prime example of just how one-sided this is. More progressive media outlets are slim pickings honestly. For general news coverage, within limits surprisingly al-Jazeera ranks pretty highly. I say "within limits" because it has the same blind spot all state media does: the state it represents. The BBC is another prime example of this.
  • FabHK 4y ago
    It's a bit more nuanced than "neoliberal, centre-right", though. The Economist is aware of the failures of markets, in favour of drug legalisation, gay marriage, gun control, measures to curb climate change (they've called for a carbon tax from 1987 onwards), and has endorsed the Democrat rather than Republican candidate in 6 of the last 8 US presidential elections.
    • jmyeet 4y ago
      I don’t disagree with you but consider one of your examples: the carbon tax. This attempts to use capitalism to solve a global problem. That’s the hallmark of neoliberalism: the undying faith in capitalism or simply taking it as axiomatic.
• throwaway2037 4y ago
  You might add https://www.spiegel.de/international/ https://www.spiegel.de/international/ to your list. It is free and well written. The good thing about Financial Times: It is a UK publisher, not US-based, so the reporting on the US is more skeptical and nuanced. Less screechy. To be fair, I avoid almost all of the opinion pieces except for Martin Wolf, because he is basically writing an economics column. The rest is rather inflammatory (much lower editorial standards!) and can can readily be skipped. Also consider the free FT AlphaVille which is a blog attached to FT. Much more casual reporting style, but they have cracked some big cases, including Dan Mccrum's year-long (later explosive) investigation into Wirecard.
  • msackmann 4y ago
    Wow, thanks for pointing out the international Spiegel. It seems much more substantial than the free German counterpart, at least in my first impression.
  • peteey 4y ago
    >more skeptical and nuanced Than what? The Economist is UK based too. The Economist tends to favor the US because the Economist supports liberal democracy and free trade worldwide. The Unites States is the only country who can and does defend those values. Europe cannot arm Ukraine against Putin. Japan cannot dispute China's claims rights to Taiwan or the ocean.
    • otikik 4y ago
      I don’t need to read the Economist any more because everything I needed to know was on this comment.
  • rjzzleep 4y ago
    I'd stay far away from the Spiegel. While it has the reputation of a liberal magazine it actually started off as the mouthpiece of the BND. For some weird reason it got that reputation when it attacked Adenauer's policies when he and de Gaulle were working on bringing Germany and France closer together. While it somehow has retained this intellectual status to a lot of people it is an outrageous publication, with much better marketing than it has content. It has also hired more and more leadership from tabloids. I'd look into Swiss or French publications. Although most of the French media has also unfortunately been pretty streamlined.
• cybrexalpha 4y ago
  I took out an Economist subscription for the first time this year, and I've found it really mixed. Lots of interesting articles, but I'll agree the analysis isn't as good as many other sources I've seen (in my view). What's the bigger blocker for me is the anti-LGBT+ lean. For example the most recent article on trans rights: November 19th - 25th 2022 issue, "Transgressions", page 29 in print. It's not even the insidious "see both sides" argument you see often, but just unbalanced rehash of old claims with no analysis, research, or further thought. In the same issue, The Economist jumped to the defence of Qatar (“In defence of Qatar”, page 18 in print) with the argument that while Qatar was terrible for LGBT+ rights, so have been pervious world cup holders. To me that’s not even an argument, that’s just a defeatist “oh well it was bad before so why bother complaining”. I’m all for accepting viewpoints that are different from my own, but when it comes to “should LGBT+ people have rights” that’s not up for debate.
  • rsynnott 4y ago
    Oh, yeah, for about two months any time I opened Facebook (in fairness, once a week) it was pushing that article at me. Really lowered my opinion of the Economist; a very low quality article more befitting of something like the Telegraph.
  • LocutusOfBorges 4y ago
    Seconding this. I cancelled my subscription quite a few years ago in light of the low quality of analysis in the UK section of the paper - it felt like tabloid journalism aimed at people who thought too highly of their class status and level of education to deign to read a real tabloid, yet essentially at the same level of insight, peppered with a few affected rhetorical flourishes conveying an aesthetic of educated sophistication. It’s very much a newspaper designed to give people without the time or inclination to develop a substantial understanding of an issue a quite superficial overview, packaged alongside an opinion that can be regurgitated as required to give the impression that one has a respectable understanding of the matter in question (at the very least, outside some of its more detailed feature articles). …Even in light of that, the rapidity of the decline in its coverage of LGBT+ human rights has been extraordinary, even by UK standards. The fact that prominent editorial staff at the newspaper (Helen Joyce, for one) are extremely prominent anti-transgender activists probably has something to do with it - but the sheer venom of its coverage really took me aback when I started following its current turn. The issue certainly isn’t specific to it, given the broader anti-trans/LGBT+ turn in the UK press as a whole, but the Economist stands out as one of the worst for it.
• xorcist 4y ago
  While I too enjoy Der Spiegel, the Economist is fairly unique in that it has a classical liberal and globalist slant. There's much less nationalistic perspective in their reporting which can be a breath of fresh air. Lately I've enjoyed Politico for at least sometimes sharing this ambition. It's very US-centric, even in the Politico EU variant, but there's far less national exceptionalism than its peers in my opinion. I completely agree that the Economist has been slowly declining in quality over the last decade, which saddens me. Clickbaiting is a universal problem now, and I don't think there's any direct competitor that's better. I've come to terms with diversifying my reading list and reading much less of each instead.
• Alexfromthehood 4y ago
  In my experience, Le Monde Diplomatique is a very good newspaper. Because they don't make money from advertising but from subscriptions. But their bias is a bit too left-wing, and not nuanced enough.
• Alexfromthehood 4y ago
  In my experience, Le monde diplomatic is a very good newspaper. Because they don't make money from advertising but from subscriptions. But their bias is a bit too left-wing, and not nuanced enough.
• tingle 4y ago
  Non-western publications of possible interest: https://asiatimes.com/ https://asiatimes.com/ in english, mostly free https://www.jeuneafrique.com/ https://www.jeuneafrique.com/ in french, subscription
• robtherobber 4y ago
  This older comment I made a while ago might come in handy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28911253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28911253 E: It is basically a somewhat long list of newspapers and periodicals from across the world.
• ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  It's not really the same thing as the Economist in terms of news coverage, but: https://evonomics.com/ https://evonomics.com/ Bills itself as the next evolution of Economics and "Changes in economic thinking can change the world, for the better. That’s the core belief that inspires Evonomics" Here's a story by Tim O'Reilly about Elon Musk: Why Elon Musk Isn’t Superman : The Betting Economy vs. The Operating Economy https://evonomics.com/why-elon-musk-isnt-superman/ https://evonomics.com/why-elon-musk-isnt-superman/
• ksec 4y ago
  Best to keep both FT and Economist.
• dotancohen 4y ago
  Some people do read Playboy for the articles. In fact, I did read a Lee Iaccoca interview in Playboy once, it was excellent from what I remember. OP might want to seriously consider looking into that often-pigeonholed publication.
• mc32 4y ago
  For me the main problem with most of these publications is that although oftentimes they couch things in data and science they are mostly opinion-based so their prognostications are quite fallible. They remind me of the "The Standard" and "Business 2.0" etc., of the aughts. While things were going up, they seemed to catch the wave and ride it, but as the bubble burst their faults due to lack of any underlying structure or rigor became evident. So too with The Economist, not to speak of things like The Atlantic etc., who rely mostly on opinion or tenuous data. Now, often The Economist tries to rely on some science/data but they have their own ideology and that leads to them making mistakes as well. I wish they relied more on science and data over ideology (such as free markets or globalization, etc., not to say those are bad, but just have some skepticism and criticism. They often took globalization to be an unqualified good)
• jimmytidey 4y ago
  One effect you might be experiencing is over-familiarity. I find magazines fascinating for a while, then you understand their house style, the quirks of the recurrent columns, their political stance, and you know what they are going to say even before you read. Even when they say the opposite of what you were expecting the reach their conclusion by travelling through territory you've been through many times before. Weirdly, I've recently been experiencing this with Twitter. Every opinion unfolds mechanically. Even the curve balls are predictable at a statistical level.
  • rchaud 4y ago
    Interesting point, I have definitely felt that with the New York Times, especially in terms of how it covers international stories. You can see the angle a mile away. The Economist is even more guilty of this because their editorial style is pretty upfront about their ideology. Every story can be summarized as "more free trade/less regulation would have prevented $currentDisaster"
• heywherelogingo 4y ago
  Covid demonstrated that all mainstream media in the UK are controlled by the government. I ditched both my Economist and FT subscriptions in favour of independent journalists. I would have ditched the Economist anyway, it's become demented. I've been glancing at Foreign Affairs, but not sufficiently yet to decide on subscribing.
• wahnfrieden 4y ago
  Jacobin is directionally correct but I'd love to hear of any better/less problematic publications
  • tclancy 4y ago
    My only problem with Jacobin so far (I too, like the OP, quit The Economist after a decade or so of reading, mainly because my politics had drifted even further left) is the redesign has made it feel like someone printed out a Tumblr from the 2000s. Finding an article and being able to focus on it is near impossible.
• diimdeep 4y ago
  I know some will call me biased, or worse. But I think that rt.com is doing an honest journalistic job covering politics related to Russia, it is definitely different perspective compared to western news. One thing I tweaked is to add background CSS color to <em> element with Stylus extension as they use it for extensive quotation in articles, much more visible when it is editorial and when it is quotes. ``` em { background: #ccd } ```
• paganel 4y ago
  I've been reading The Economist, on and off, for about 17 years. Since about a year or so I've come back to reading it each week, after a pause of a couple of years. I also did notice the same change of quality as you also noticed, and I'm not really convinced that it's only caused by me noticing stuff all of a sudden. As a specific example, them calling whatever the Trump supporters say about the 2020 elections as the "Big Lie", capitalised, it's something that they wouldn't have done ~10 years ago. I'm talking about the same magazine that had a 3-page mostly congratulatory article on Blair long after the start of the Iraq war (I'd say around 2010-2012). They didn't capitalised any "L-s" in "lies" back then, I'm not even sure they called out Blair as being a liar. As an answer to your specific question, for the moment I'm also trying out Foreign Affairs. They're even more ideologically one-sided than The Economist, but at least in their case they wear their ideology on their sleeve, so to speak, which makes it more bearable for me to read them. Their book reviews (including the longer "review essays", as they call them) though are less ideologically one-sided, or at least so I found them, and imo they're intellectually worth more than many of the featured articles. For example the September-October issue has this excellent review called: "Old World Order - The Real Origin of International Relations" [1], commenting on a book called "Before the West: The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders" [2], which presented the "birth" of international relations via Mongol rule in most of Eurasia starting with the 1200s. In so doing it also makes some passing references to Russians Eurasians like Nikolai Trubetzkoy, Vernadsky or Gumilyov, and what their writings and theories might mean for modern Russia. Really interesting stuff and pretty on point, which stuff I didn't see mentioned in almost any issue of The Economist (where the underlying belief is that the West is fighting the Russian Asiatic Horde, and they leave it at that). I've also been a FT reader for 20 years, again, with big on-an-off periods, but, the same as with The Economist, I found that their biases have changed quite a lot, in a way that I don't like (there are exceptions, like Martin Wolf, with whom I mostly don't agree on a political level but which has been mostly on point, plus their finance-related reporting is really good, at least for non-experts like me). [1] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/old-world-order https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/old-world-order [2] https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/before-the-west/78E4B5CE511AA928B2C650AF1CDFE3CA https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/before-the-west/78E4B5C...
• crazygringo 4y ago
  I see this claim in nearly every HN thread about the Economist -- that it's declined in quality. And it baffles me because, having read it for 20+ years and gone back for research to read plenty of articles from further back... I just don't see it at all. It's the same market-based, socially progressive, pragmatic international strongly opinionated journalism it's always been. Sometimes I think the way it characterizes something is missing part of the full picture, but it's always been that way. Journalists are fallible humans, they aren't gods, and it's not like there was some mythical past where they always got things right. I can totally understand people not enjoying it as much as they grow older, simply because you come to mistrust journalism more in general, or shift in your ideological viewpoint so it becomes less agreeable. Readers change. But I'm getting tired of this trope that it's the Economist that's been changing, that's been getting worse. It just doesn't make any sense. It's the same journalism it's always been. For every article you take issue with, I'm sure you'd find just as many from 20 or 30 years ago. I suppose it's just part of a general narrative of declinism, how everything used to be so much better and the world is crumbling. But in this case, I just don't see it. You might not like the magazine anymore and that's fine, but I think there's a good chance it's you who has changed, not the magazine.
  • mannykannot 4y ago
    I think you have a point... and, furthermore, declinism today is just about the same as it always has been.
    • omarhaneef 4y ago
      I have to disagree. The quality of decline has really gone downhill in the last few years. Used to be that when things fell apart, they really fell apart (think revolution, collapse) but now they just peter out.
      • justinpowers 4y ago
        I agree. But I optimistically believe that decline will soon experience a renaissance. We’re gonna start declining again. We’re gonna decline so much. We’re gonna decline at every level. We’re gonna decline economically. We’re gonna decline with the economy. We’re gonna decline with military. We’re gonna decline with healthcare and for our veterans. We’re gonna decline with every single facet. We’re gonna decline so much you may even get tired of declining. And you’ll say “Please! Please! It’s too much declining! We can’t take it anymore. Mr President, it’s too much!” And he’ll say “No it isn’t. We have to keep declining. We have to decline MORE! We’re gonna decline MORE! We’re gonna decline so much! I love you America. You’re gonna be so happy!” Ahh yes. Soon. Soon.
• wirrbel 4y ago
  I had subscribed to the economist and it was a nightmare to cancel the subscription (they expected a phone call and would not accept a cancellation by email). I will never ever subscribe the economist again for dark patterns
• totalZero 4y ago
  I follow Nikkei very frequently for tech news and I enjoy Barron's for market viewpoints. My view is that Western Europe has become less relevant to North American culture, technology, and finance over the past five or so years. Latin America and Asia are now far more relevant to North American life and the future thereof. I share your thoughts about the Economist and I feel it has gone downhill. I wonder how much of that is due to the cultural and economic decline of the UK and the public narrative shift accompanying that decline. Brexit brought some very unsavory and counterproductive sentiments to the fore.
• rayiner 4y ago
  I read Bloomberg and listen to CNBC. I think at bottom knowing what’s really happening matters to finance peoples’ bottom lines, and that has a way of focusing the mind and cutting through partisan blinders.
• ssivark 4y ago
  Had you considered that this might be a macro problem? The last several decades had a stable narrative with special places for certain institutions. With the narrative world order unwinding, institutions are having a hard time seeming authoritative (despite desperate attempts) because they cannot figure out the “right” new narratives. If this diagnosis is correct, you are unlikely to find much satisfaction from shifting sources — it’s the end of an era, and a whiplash from the last few decades of “over stability” ignoring several distinct changes and having them pile up and bubble out all at once.
• lajosbacs 4y ago
  I'd vote for FT from your list. It is worth it just for Janan Ganesh's columns, the rest is just a bonus.
• Cwizard 4y ago
  The perceived decline in quality might just be caused by a very real increase in the quality of ‘amateur’ journalism. I noticed this both during covid and Ukraine coverage. The quality of journalism that is now available online is in my opinion much greater than any news organisation can put out. Often because the amateur journalist are people covering event from on the ground as it is happening.
• aaron695 4y ago
• heywherelogingo 4y ago
  Obvious who's going to defend The Economist: https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/ratings https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/ratings
• noodlesUK 4y ago
  I think the thing that will suit you most is probably the FT. It's a similar grown-up feeling paper with a strong financial lean but still covers general interest news in a clear way. It's one of the few newspapers that I read that still has some longer form content. I see that you're UK based -- If you still have an active UK university email, you can usually get a subscription for free. See this page for details: https://enterprise.ft.com/ft-education-resources/licence-finder/ https://enterprise.ft.com/ft-education-resources/licence-fin...
  • rch 4y ago
    I'm a FT subscriber, and I can also recommend the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (https://nzz.ch/english https://nzz.ch/english). They tend to have excellent data-driven reporting, and substantive articles.
• disposition2 4y ago
  Just a PSA for anyone in the US, typically your public library will have access to digital products like Libby or Flipster. These products typically include access magazines (such as the Economist), newspapers and websites for free. As to OPs question, I typically try to use an array of sources for news and try to support publications that I cannot access freely / through other means or feel strongly about supporting (such as local news and publications like Harpers).
  • waltbosz 4y ago
    Also, your public library may have videos games. Sadly, my library system's collection of Switch games is missing the Kibry franchise. But it does have Smash Bros which has been a lot of fun. Also, if you live near the border of a state with a better library system than yours, check if you can get a non-resident library card (you may have to pay). Also, if you have young children, check out https://imaginationlibrary.com/ https://imaginationlibrary.com/ from Dolly Parton. It's a free program that will mail your child a free book every month up until their 5th birthday.
• janandonly 4y ago
  I guess as a Dutch speaker, I am somewhat “spoiled” by the existence of 360 Magazine [1]. They don't write their articles, but translate into Dutch news articles from all over the world. It really makes for high-quality reading. [1] https://www.360magazine.nl
• zhte415 4y ago
  Further ideas Aside from the FT, Read the BoE/ECB publications. Follow topics you're interested in via REPEC https://ideas.repec.org/services.html https://ideas.repec.org/services.html - see subscription options at the base of the page. Follow the econ Mastodon econtwitter.net
• fattybob 4y ago
  I used to be an Financial Times fanboy, but sad to say, it’s been going downhill for some time now , for news stories I should add. I used to get the economist, but found with my work rotation (4-6 week remote areas) - I was simply not reading it, then I was intrigued by a colleague reading the spectator- never really my politics, but I gave it a read and have been reading it since, I would read private eye if I could get it (not seen it in Vietnam). I also now read the telegraph- that and spectator and FT all online, again, I take a contrary bevies on any political bias, but the writing is good and enjoyable. Maybe I should take another look at the economist- in the past it was superb, it excelled in all fields, often better than supposedly specialised magazines (yeah - I ditched new scientist soon after graduating)!
• rchaud 4y ago
  Wall Street Journal (except the op-ed pages, which are comically extreme). Financial Times is also very good, I prefer WSJ. They provide actual reporting and not just narrative; WSJ reporting broke the news of the Theranos fraud for example.
  • ROTMetro 4y ago
    I used to subscribe but at some point as a free market believer I have to put my money where my mouth is and not fund ANY Murdoch enterprises.
    • rchaud 4y ago
      If it heads in a Fox News or UK Sun type of direction, I'm gone. But for the time being, it really is one of the few sources of high-quality business coverage. That's partially why it's so inordinately expensive compared to other papers.
• mzd348 4y ago
  Politico.eu has a weekly "print edition" (you can download the pdf from their site) and I feel it's not too far from The Economist in terms of subject matter, and goes into more depth for EU issues. The writing quality isn't as good though. Not sure what their political leaning is. The New Statesman isn't bad but has some problems: delivery delays to the US (maybe not an issue for you) and lots of "advertorials". The writing quality is usually good. It has a left/labour leaning.
• comte7092 4y ago
  Project-syndicate is a great option: https://www.project-syndicate.org/ https://www.project-syndicate.org/ I’ve also enjoyed Adam tooze’s newsletter after seeing it crop up on hacker news lately: https://adamtooze.substack.com https://adamtooze.substack.com
• apeescape 4y ago
  Not a comprehensive magazine/paper, but I really like Matt Levine's Money Stuff newsletter; mentioning it in case you haven't checked it out yet.
• nuc1e0n 4y ago
  I have similar feelings about the magazine. I think a lot of the oddness of their views are down to the writers not really being 'digital natives'. There's a hint of them being slightly confused and fearful when it comes to stories with a technological angle to them.
• rcarr 4y ago
  Had a quick look and couldn’t see this suggestion anywhere else so apologies if is has already been mentioned. Why not bypass these kinds of magazines all together and subscribe to a few writers or publications on substack? There is some very high quality stuff on there and you can explore your particular interests deeper. Some good places to start might be the Pragmatic Engineer for tech posts and Glenn Greenwald for investigative journalism.
• ianyanusko 4y ago
  Not quite a replacement given that it's quarterly, but the nascent Asterisk Mag seems like it would at least fill the long-form essay niche: https://asteriskmag.com/ https://asteriskmag.com/ I'm still a serious economist reader and podcast listener, especially for their special reports, but I've also started to rely more and more on a curated RSS feed of substacks & blogs.
• TurkishPoptart 4y ago
  It's really crazy to see that the infamous Rothschild family has a 25% stake in this magazine. Not to mention obscure European shell companies, holding God-knows-what else. >Owners: Exor N.V. (43.40%) Rothschild Cadbury Schroder Layton[1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Group
• gxqoz 4y ago
  I agree with others that I don't understand where you're coming from in some sort of decline or big change in The Economist. Maybe if you're overly obsessed with the editorials, which I've always skipped, something has changed. But the basic news reporting remains more or less the same as it has been for the 5+ years I've been subscribing. I subscribed to Le Monde Diplomatique for a year and rarely found more than 1 or 2 articles a month that were interesting info I couldn't get elsewhere. I subscribe to Foreign Affairs and find it to be 80% boring junk on the same set of topics about the rise of China, what to do about Russia, etc. The occasional article or book review on a less covered country makes it sort of worth the subscription price to me. If you're just looking for something like "interesting book reviews," I'd take a look at the Literary Review. Or maybe the Times Literary Supplement. And New York Review of Books and London Review of Books offer much more in-depth reviews, but reading between the lines it seems like the op is saying The Economist is too liberal for them and is not going to like the tenor of most of what's in these.
  • gxqoz 4y ago
    Another option I guess is Bloomberg Businessweek which has at least some of the same news coverage as The Economist. But if you're not liking The Economist for having too much opinion you don't agree with, I'm guessing you won't like Businessweek. (You can usually find a print sub to Businessweek that's a lot less than a regular Bloomberg one).
• nirv 4y ago
  Financial Times[1] is my primary source of high-quality European and international news. Politico Europe[2] and WSJ[3] come next. I also recommend Spiegel International[4], Le Monde Diplomatique[5], and Nikkei Asia[6] for the German, French, and Japanese perspectives respectively. [1] https://ft.com https://ft.com [2] https://politico.eu https://politico.eu [3] https://wsj.com https://wsj.com [4] https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe [5] https://mondediplo.com https://mondediplo.com [6] https://asia.nikkei.com https://asia.nikkei.com
• alexseman 4y ago
• pyuser583 4y ago
  We are living in a golden age of high quality journalism - it just coexists with lots of crap. For example, on the Left you have N+1 and Progressive. On the Center you have Atlantic and Foreign Affairs. Conservatives have National Affair, American Affairs, and National Review. But none of them is a biweekly paper/magazine intended to keep you informed of all major current events from an international perspective. Realistically, you have to go with a daily: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post. We don’t have weekly or biweekly papers in the US.
• RamblingCTO 4y ago
  I wanted to throw in NZZ, but I'm afraid they only have German issues. Le Monde Diplomatique is nice for their longer reports. That's where I first learned that sand will run out somewhere in the 2050s due to concrete.
• Daniel_92 4y ago
  Just read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. There's a beautiful metanarrative in there about first the "thought leaders" and then eventually the artists, and then eventually the media declining as they grovel and collectively are unwilling to check each other basically in the name of political correctness(I won't spoil it beyond that, great book). "A society gets the military it deserves" -TR Fehrenbach, This Kind of War. The same is true of the media. I agree with what you said on the Economist. Probably 4-6 years ago, I saw the same thing happen with the Atlantic. Very sad. I use HN because it pulls from so many sources. Ill still enjoy stuff from the Econ here and there. 2 pieces of advice: Diversify your sources, and second, develop a system of personal morality. Too few people in our society have one of those... which means too few people who are philosophers have one, and therefore too few artists, and too few journalists. And eventually, people like you and me can recognize that not only is the bar low.... someone stole the bar and is chasing the contestants around with it beating them at random. Cheers.
• quickthrower2 4y ago
  https://youtu.be/JTkSV7sXz8Y https://youtu.be/JTkSV7sXz8Y