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Hey all,

I'm looking into getting an online subscription for an American newspaper and am a bit at a loss which one(s) to pick. There are a lot of high quality ones, but from the few free articles they offer per month, it's hard to see how objective and balanced they are on the whole. As I'm unwilling to manage a dozen short-term subscriptions just to filter out the blatantly partisan ones (I am not incredibly interested in the "left" or "right" take on things, but rather in the news or facts themselves) and those with a regional instead of a nation-wide focus, I thought I'd take the lazy way out and simply ask you guys for recommendations.

Thanks in advance!

I like the Wall Street Journal. They cover much more than just business. They generally have a more analytical style to their coverage vice a sensational style.

Honestly though, I'm not sure I would spend the money on an online subscription to any paper though. Too much info is available for free.

 CptJake wrote:
I like the Wall Street Journal. They cover much more than just business. They generally have a more analytical style to their coverage vice a sensational style.

Honestly though, I'm not sure I would spend the money on an online subscription to any paper though. Too much info is available for free.

Agreed on both counts. Its a shame really.

 CptJake wrote:
I like the Wall Street Journal. They cover much more than just business. They generally have a more analytical style to their coverage vice a sensational style.

Honestly though, I'm not sure I would spend the money on an online subscription to any paper though. Too much info is available for free.

But they rarely show people in bikinis.

 Allod wrote:
Hey all,

I'm looking into getting an online subscription for an American newspaper and am a bit at a loss which one(s) to pick. There are a lot of high quality ones, but from the few free articles they offer per month, it's hard to see how objective and balanced they are on the whole. As I'm unwilling to manage a dozen short-term subscriptions just to filter out the blatantly partisan ones (I am not incredibly interested in the "left" or "right" take on things, but rather in the news or facts themselves)

That last sentence indicates you probably don't want a American newspaper at all. They all have at least some level of bias. I prefer Reuters or the BBC when you have to strip out bias because they're less attuned to it in foreign American politics, having no dog in most fights here.

Don't pay for a subscription.

Reuters has more bikinis than WSJ.

Does the Onion still have a print edition? If so, go with that.

 daedalus wrote:
Does the Onion still have a print edition? If so, go with that.

Seconded. The greatest paper of all is the one that acknowledges its content is bullocks :nods:

 LordofHats wrote:

 daedalus wrote:
Does the Onion still have a print edition? If so, go with that.

Seconded. The greatest paper of all is the one that acknowledges its content is bullocks :nods:

Puhlease, get your nooze and info here:

http://www.duffelblog.com/

Granted the scope of the news on the Duffel Blog is rather focused.....

All US news is biased. Some more then others. The trick is to pick one with a bias you recognize (and can filter) that you think actually has some scraps of journalistic integrity.

As a personal note, while I don't subscribe, my homepage for when I launch a web browser is http://www.nytimes.com. Just reading the headlines gives me an idea of what's going on, and if something catches my eye I can dig into that topic from other sources. It helps that as someone living upstate, a few of the local/regional stories are relevant to my life.

Print is dead.

Hmm... thanks for all the answers so far. I gathered you are really happy with your media landscape.

Reuters is certainly useful, but I prefer to have a bit of journalism mixed in with my news, so I guess I'll give the Wall Street Journal a try.

The "too much info is available for free" comments, while certainly correct, don't really apply to me as I already usually read two Austrian newspapers a day, my professional publications, a weekly news magazine, and so on. I really do not have the motivation to sift through several websites on top of that, I just want to have something "delivered" to me that I can read or leaf through and feel reasonably informed afterwards.

@ Nevelon:

I know what you mean. That's why I'm reading at least two Austrian newspapers a day - we only have two that hold themselves to a reasonable standard, and one of them is blatantly left-wing, while the other one is openly conservative. The problem is that my filtering of US news is for sure way off the mark, so I either need two newspapers worth reading and find the common denominators in their stories, or one that is (at least more or less) unbiased.

WSJ is good, but obviously it is geared more towards business. Its opinion pieces will have a business slant.

The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are both good, and are large enough operations that they still have investigative journalists on staff (though fewer than they used to have). Each has their agendas and biases, but they're not delusional or anything.

I generally find that paid news sources are significantly better than free sources. Anything ad-based eventually seems to succumb to the market darwinism that encourages clickbait sensationalism, short articles, and Breaking News. Subscription based news services can't rely on that sort of immediate satisfaction - their content has to have some lasting impact, so when the first of the month rolls around you think "yeah, those were some interesting news stories I read" before you pay that monthly fee.

Frazzled wrote:WSJ is good, but obviously it is geared more towards business. Its opinion pieces will have a hardcore conservative, partisan-at-any-cost slant.

Fixed that for ya, Frazz.

 azazel the cat wrote:

Frazzled wrote:WSJ is good, but obviously it is geared more towards business. Its opinion pieces will have a hardcore conservative, partisan-at-any-cost slant.

Fixed that for ya, Frazz.

If you think thats hardcore conservative partisan at any cost I have a bridge to sell you. You're just so lefty everything to the right of Marx is a Koch partier.

This is hardcore conservative:
http://townhall.com/