There was also speculation this week that the Guardian would go digital only. That was denied by the Guardian Editor in Chief. However, @tomstandage, an editor of the Economist tweeted:
Claims Guardian will ditch print edition could be half right,
despite @arusbridger's denials; they could go weekly (as I expect NYT to)
That would be quite a change. No more daily print New York Times, or Guardian.
It'd definitely be a shame to see The Guardian go, I stopped reading around the point where they started cutting big chunks of content out to get the costs down, but I understand why they did it. Still use them as my primary news source, although the quality has dropped some what in the past 6 months.
The Guardian is owned by a trust, intended to keep it going in perpetuity. That should shield it from commercial pressure. However, the trust only has finite resources, so it can't run at a loss forever.
I'm actually a bit worried about that to be honest.
At the moment we have the BBC and the Guardian, both completely shielded from having to turn a profit. The BBC is fairly easy for the government to meddle with, the Guardian is pretty extreme lefty.
It's very easy to forget as they have such a great website, but the Guardian is an extremely biased paper. If you have the Daily Mail on the right the Guardian occupies the same spot on the left.
I worry that these non-commercial, but well funded, enterprises are actually not very healthy for the the long-term future of UK journalism.
I wouldn't say The Guardian is really well funded, it's got a trust so profitability isn't a huge concern but if the money runs out they're done for.
The Guardian is pretty far left, but they do try and present a balance at times (not always), and the traditional readership is often reasonable enough to have a discourse and not shout at each other.
The problem isn't The Guardian or The Daily Mail, it's that people read them and use them to prop up their very narrow worldviews. Either group could trivially shift their paper of choice to the other (or one of the more moderate alternatives) -- it's not an issue of availablity.
While The Guardian isn't for profit, they still rely on the market to provide money for them, either through buying the paper or donating to the trust. The fact that the BBC which can (and sometimes does) shut it self away from any money raising concerns is more centric than the Guardian suggests that the ownership model doesn't inform the editorial much.
I love the phrase "pretty extreme lefty" :-). I think that's been a difference in British journalism compared to the US. There are so many papers in the UK, that they have each staked out their own niche readership. The Guardian serves left leaning readers. The Daily Mail for the right, etc.
As long as enough papers survive that there is a diversity of viewpoints, things will be fine. (That's certainly not a given, however.)
From what I can tell they're a bit narrower than merely "extreme lefty" though - they actually seem to be biased towards a particular kind of niche feminism. Not even towards feminism as a whole (and yes, there are conflicts between that and the broader left wing), but to a very specific, narrow ideology within it.
What is your worry about removing the most significant conflict of interest from a news organization exactly? It seems like it might cause other issues but I can't think of a reasonable reason that it would do anything but reduce the amount of bias present.
And really? The Daily Fucking Mail? First of all: middle ground fallacy. Second: What sane person takes the Daily Mail's position on anything as a serious data point about where on the political spectrum a hypothetical unbiased news source would lie.
I'm finding it difficult not to stereotype you as an american who feels the middle ground between the Democrats and Republicans is a true middle ground (and that reality therefore has a left wing bias).
If you think the Guardian's not as far left as the Mail's far right you're uninformed and need to read more. I suggest political theory and try reading all the different broadsheets on the same day a few days to understand political bias in each one.
Finally, go talk to some real people. If you think people don't have similar political beliefs as the daily mail you're utterly deluding yourself.
I suggest people not in your age group. I have found most Daily Mail readers in the 40-60s groups. It seems you have surrounded yourself with like-minded people, nothing wrong with that, but now believe everyone thinks like you do.
The 'middle' that you claim to be inhabiting is probably actually far left. There's a lot further right you can go than the Mail (like fascism for example). Liberals do seem to make this mistake rather a lot, thinking they're the moderate centre, when they're anything but.
I have no idea what you were getting at in your first sentence, sorry.
The first sentence was asking why you think non-commercial news sources would be bad for journalism.
As to the rest, I think a lot of our disagreement comes from how we define the middle and whether "moderate centre" can exist on it's own or only relative to the local politics. There is a difference between philosophical differences in political views about subjective or unknown issues and actual bias, where ideological commitments result in irrational positions on subjects with real evidence (roughly: denial of evolution/climate change is most often political bias, differences in taxation policy or social safety net policy are most often philosophical differences)
Also, I don't think I'm moderate centre or middle at all, nor am I just left. My worldview is based on science, rationality and skepticism so on the scale you are using I swing from centre to extreme left to fairly right depending on the issue. Perhaps that's why I consider the single axis political spectrum to be a framework for the ignorant and only useful to those writing the talking points. I certainly consider The Economist to be more similar to The Guardian than to the Daily Mail, which probably sounds crazy to you.
I understand you could read the different broadsheets to understand how their politics differ but how do you translate that to bias? How have you decided where the middle is other than averaging the broadsheets? That's textbook middle ground fallacy. It's completely open to manipulation by shifts in the Overton window.
That was an attraction for me as well. I used to read the NYT each day, but it was easier (and less paper) when I switched to the Economist. Now after reading it, I'm just an Economist fanboy because of the content.
We subscribed to Newsweek throughout my childhood, even living overseas. I recall excitedly going through it every time it arrived. As far as the news digest format went, in those days they mixed topic areas fluidly, while keeping their readers informed.
I canceled my personal subscription years ago. To me, the format changes had made it less comprehensive, the quality of writing had declined, and it had become too political. Or, maybe I'd just outgrown it.
Sure, they'll have a digital version, but they have far smaller staff (and impact) than they once did. They're a marginally iconic publication, who were unable to adapt to the new world, and are thus a victim of the changing landscape of journalism.
I had the exact same childhood experience. Fond memories of sitting on the front porch in summer reading every article.
I remember when Time darkened the OJ Simpson cover to make him appear more sinister! Newsweek was on the right side of that one, and soon they will be gone.
It was foundational learning, along with Sid Meier's Civilization and Winston Groom's Forest Gump and the sequel Gump & Company.
The Gump books are funny enough to keep the attention of a fourth grader, and teach modern American history along the way.
We really, really, really have to figure a way to distribute the bounty of our bigger than ever economy a bit better, so professional journalism can continue.
> the quality of writing had declined, and it had become too political.
In my mind it has become way too Liberal. Maybe I didn't realize it when I was growing up and reading it every month, but it certainly has changed.
Too bad really, in a time when there's so much opinion pieces and media outlets are all slanted one way or another, it would be nice to have a news organization which simply reported the news and didn't have a vested interest in some political party which slanted its views.
I would say public TV and radio is the closest thing to this. ("This" being a mostly balanced media organization)
It's impossible to completely eliminate bias though - even absent opinion pieces or editorializing, there's going to be some small level in the stories you choose to cover.
*ed
Wow, downvotes? Anyone care to rebut instead of click and run?
I upvoted, since it is lame to downvote just for an honest disagreement of opinion.
I think NPR is seen as having a liberal slant. NPR has done some very in depth studies of this, counting liberal stories vs conservative, and determined that there was no bias. (I remember hearing this on NPR ;-). However, Republicans are convinced of this bias, and keep trying to cut their funding.
I used to listen to NPR quite a bit on my commute, and I did think they were to the left. (I'm not saying that's a bad thing, mind you.)
I find PBS news coverage more balanced, but a bit dry as well.
I consume NPR as my exclusive broadcast news source and I agree with you. NPR is more often balanced and interesting than the others, but there are times when the liberal bias is glaring. Even if all the stories broadcast are balanced, which is often not the case, there is bias even in story selection; why does NPR always have stories about how sad it is to defund the National Park Service instead of stories about how great it is to reduce the national debt and how much taxation and interest this will save in the long run? Because they'd rather pay more taxes and keep the Park Service alive.
A recent example: in a snippet about some magazine's "First Lady Cookie Recipe Cook-off", the invited commentator was a writer for Jezebel.com, a feminist political blog, and while they ostensibly offered a chance for rebuttal, the Jezebel commentator spoke for about a minute and they read the three-words justification from the publisher: "People like it" as a response. One may ask, "Why did they give venue to this commentator, whose opinion is obviously skewed hard to one direction and outside the mainstream concept, and not at least give equal time to someone from Focus on the Family or something?" The answer is, "NPR likes Jezebel more, and wants to promote commentators that will give the audience the perception that this is a sexist/unequal thing".
This might be nit picky, but how is explicitly supporting nature preserves and National Parks a left-wing thing?
You can advocate for tight purse strings while protecting natural beauty for everyone of current and future generations.
I think your sentiment is a bit revealing of the divisiveness present in national political discourse. Supporting the park service shouldn't be seen as left or right, it should be seen as cost benefit analysis that a particular congressperson has made.
Supporting the park service shouldn't be seen as left or right, it should be seen as cost benefit analysis that a particular congressperson has made.
In the present political climate, one of the political parties has (incubated?/)latched onto the generalized anti-government sentiment that came to a head last year around the Occupy movement.
Since National Parks and nature preserves are handled under a government organization, they represent something which that one political party has made a priority to remove in this round of politicking.
it's so weird to me that people feel this way, when NPR is clearly much more Right-ward than me and my friends - but of course, I've lived in San Francisco, Oakland, and Portland.
I wish there was a news source Left of me! It would be fascinating.
>I think NPR is seen as having a liberal slant. NPR has done some very in depth studies of this, counting liberal stories vs conservative, and determined that there was no bias.
The NYT does the same thing, occasioning much laughter and derision from the right. We can't decide if they're being dishonest or if their frame of reference is such that they really believe they're being evenhanded.
As a conservative, I'm convinced NPR is biased. I listen to it every day on the way to work, since it's still preferable to commercial radio (even donated a couple times), but there's no doubt in my mind whoever is calling the shots would love to see the president reelected.
It's not so much how the news gets covered but what gets covered. If this week's DNC talking point is Bain Capital, NPR is covering decades-old events at Bain. If it's "War on Women" then we get to hear from hoary old feminists spouting questionable statistics. If Romney raised more money than Obama this month we get stories on Citizen United, but when Obama raises more money we get stories on just how motivated his supporters are. Benghazi was a big news story until it became apparent the ambassador died in an actual planned attack instead of a mob pissed off about a movie. Then the story disappeared completely.
I don't have any problem with the way they cover stories, for the most part, though occasionally I wince at the way things are described. The big problem is the selection.
I'm always curious if perception of bias is due to bias in and of itself. Does simply hearing a story that is negative to your side automatically make one think "bia" whereas hearing one that accords with your views makes you think "good reporting." I'm not sure anyone's opinion of bias can be trusted, because in our own minds we're not biased.
It isn't so much that hearing a story that's negative to my side makes me think "bias". It's that I hear predominately stories that are negative to my side and positive to the other. Also, pretty much every conservative you meet will tell you the same thing, so it's not just me.
But every conservative you meet is also conservative. That's my point. We're all biased and thus totally unqualified to judge bias. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try to, by the way, but we also need to be mindful of our own biases. I think that thought process, more than any change in the press, would go a long way to fixing politics in America.
The other issue is that we assume that stories that are predominately negative means bias, when it doesn't necessarily. Impartiality does not necessarily mean that we think both sides are equally valid. It's sort of like following this abortion/birth control debate. No matter what you're opinion, there is no bias in thinking that Joe Walsh and Todd Akin are full of shit. They are, period. It would be a disservice to say otherwise.
>We're all biased and thus totally unqualified to judge bias.
I have to disagree. I'm pretty sure if I wanted to put in the time I could show that NPR reports, say, 90% of the national stories that hurt Romney but only 60% of national stories that hurt Obama.
Sure, stories about Joe Walsh and Todd Akin should be there. But so should stories about Benghazi and gunwalker.
Public Radio is painfully liberal in some aspects. I work in the smart grid industry, so I have a podcast with all of NPRs energy stories, and 90%+ are favorable to green energy, solar energy, wind energy - and Anti-Coal/Carbon products.
Now, as it turns out, that happens to be my sweet spot, so I love listening to the echo chamber - but I realize there is a HUGE sector of society (perhaps enough to elect a president) that believes in Carbon/Coal/Oil/Pipelines as the foundation of the US energy economy. Those views, as a policy, are severely under-reported on NPR.
Now - I listen to NPR because I believe those alternative views are inane - but that doesn't stop me from recognizing NRP's bias.
Unfortunately, these days, people are so used to having their own (biased, in almost all cases) views dished back to them, that an unbiased news source is unlikely to garner much in the way of attention.
That's fine with me - I can live without stories of the Rapture, government taking our guns away, welfare queens, communist (muslim now?) menace, etc... I'm comfortable in my little liberal shell.
There are a handful of partisan issues that are attached to renewable energy -- things like government funding (particularly through the stimulus bill), related allegations of favoritism and corruption, and climate change related regulation (cap & trade, etc.)
For example, a handful of "green energy" companies received stimulus funding and later went bankrupt; this has led to a great deal of partisan bickering over whether Obama is wasting taxpayer money, or whether we should leave it to private enterprise to figure out renewable energy. So while the concept of renewable energy is non-partisan, policies/discussion relating to funding and regulation of renewable energy can be quite partisan.
I would say something similar is the case with respect to many other issues that sound non-partisan, like national parks -- peripheral issues like government funding and restrictions on private enterprise (logging on federal land?) can lead to a fairly significant partisan divide, even on issues that don't seem controversial.
Was the problem that they were "unable to adapt to the new world," or was the problem that they editorially went off the deep end? Readers abandoned Newsweek as Newsweek's quality declined. Perhaps the one drove the other--with fewer readers, it was tougher to fund expensive journalism. But, from the link: "Last November, she featured a cover story about sex addiction, and in May President Obama was shown wearing a rainbow-colored halo with a headline that read ”The First Gay President.”" The Internet didn't do that; Tina Brown did.
There's some kind of blindspot with traditional media: people say "oh, they couldn't handle the competition from the blogs" but that was only after decades of reducing the local papers into skeleton crews - if your newspaper is little more than a platform for syndicating Reuters stories verbatim then yeah, you're asking to be disrupted.
I've seen so much derision toward them for the First Gay President thing but I don't really understand why. It's an obvious play on First Black President Bill Clinton, made poignant by Obama being the actual first black President.
Now, their recent "Heaven is Real" cover on the other hand…
I agree, it's sad though they did some groundbreaking coverage in the past. I thought that tablet based reading would help the media industry a lot more than it has to date.
My family got Newsweek when I was growing up as well. I never did after I moved out, though, because I realized if I just read the content and skipped the ads I could read it cover to cover in about ten minutes.
And yeah, The Economist takes a lot longer to get through. But the advent of the web has been particularly hard on news magazines. I wonder how much longer even The Economist will be around.
I really think the company will suffer greatly during the transition. They are no longer a unique product and frankly the quality of writing is negligible. They are still a brand name, and that will help for a while, but in this flattened world of competition that won't cut it.
Hopefully, for whomever is in charge, they can make the type of transition the Atlantic started making years and years ago. But to be totally honest I doubt it. They don't really have much to offer.
In my own personal news consumption, there is a stratification going on: For every-day information, I'm 90% in the social media (mostly Twitter) camp. For insightful analysis, I'm going to specialized publications such as the Atlantic or the Economist. Not that I'm an expert on media, but I wonder if that type of polarization will continue, with the guys and gals in-between becoming dinosaurs.
Bold? They're losing money like crazy. Advertisers haven't been paying the rates they need to survive for almost a decade.
It was bold to keep printing and mailing the thing for the last 5 years as it became absolutely clear that printing news on paper has no future at all.
I'm surprised that so many major daily newspapers are still being printed today. That shoe is going to drop any month now.
60 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 111 ms ] threadI agree it is a shame.
At the moment we have the BBC and the Guardian, both completely shielded from having to turn a profit. The BBC is fairly easy for the government to meddle with, the Guardian is pretty extreme lefty.
It's very easy to forget as they have such a great website, but the Guardian is an extremely biased paper. If you have the Daily Mail on the right the Guardian occupies the same spot on the left.
I worry that these non-commercial, but well funded, enterprises are actually not very healthy for the the long-term future of UK journalism.
The Guardian is pretty far left, but they do try and present a balance at times (not always), and the traditional readership is often reasonable enough to have a discourse and not shout at each other.
While The Guardian isn't for profit, they still rely on the market to provide money for them, either through buying the paper or donating to the trust. The fact that the BBC which can (and sometimes does) shut it self away from any money raising concerns is more centric than the Guardian suggests that the ownership model doesn't inform the editorial much.
As long as enough papers survive that there is a diversity of viewpoints, things will be fine. (That's certainly not a given, however.)
And really? The Daily Fucking Mail? First of all: middle ground fallacy. Second: What sane person takes the Daily Mail's position on anything as a serious data point about where on the political spectrum a hypothetical unbiased news source would lie.
I'm finding it difficult not to stereotype you as an american who feels the middle ground between the Democrats and Republicans is a true middle ground (and that reality therefore has a left wing bias).
If you think the Guardian's not as far left as the Mail's far right you're uninformed and need to read more. I suggest political theory and try reading all the different broadsheets on the same day a few days to understand political bias in each one.
Finally, go talk to some real people. If you think people don't have similar political beliefs as the daily mail you're utterly deluding yourself.
I suggest people not in your age group. I have found most Daily Mail readers in the 40-60s groups. It seems you have surrounded yourself with like-minded people, nothing wrong with that, but now believe everyone thinks like you do.
The 'middle' that you claim to be inhabiting is probably actually far left. There's a lot further right you can go than the Mail (like fascism for example). Liberals do seem to make this mistake rather a lot, thinking they're the moderate centre, when they're anything but.
I have no idea what you were getting at in your first sentence, sorry.
As to the rest, I think a lot of our disagreement comes from how we define the middle and whether "moderate centre" can exist on it's own or only relative to the local politics. There is a difference between philosophical differences in political views about subjective or unknown issues and actual bias, where ideological commitments result in irrational positions on subjects with real evidence (roughly: denial of evolution/climate change is most often political bias, differences in taxation policy or social safety net policy are most often philosophical differences)
Also, I don't think I'm moderate centre or middle at all, nor am I just left. My worldview is based on science, rationality and skepticism so on the scale you are using I swing from centre to extreme left to fairly right depending on the issue. Perhaps that's why I consider the single axis political spectrum to be a framework for the ignorant and only useful to those writing the talking points. I certainly consider The Economist to be more similar to The Guardian than to the Daily Mail, which probably sounds crazy to you.
I understand you could read the different broadsheets to understand how their politics differ but how do you translate that to bias? How have you decided where the middle is other than averaging the broadsheets? That's textbook middle ground fallacy. It's completely open to manipulation by shifts in the Overton window.
I canceled my personal subscription years ago. To me, the format changes had made it less comprehensive, the quality of writing had declined, and it had become too political. Or, maybe I'd just outgrown it.
Sure, they'll have a digital version, but they have far smaller staff (and impact) than they once did. They're a marginally iconic publication, who were unable to adapt to the new world, and are thus a victim of the changing landscape of journalism.
I remember when Time darkened the OJ Simpson cover to make him appear more sinister! Newsweek was on the right side of that one, and soon they will be gone.
It was foundational learning, along with Sid Meier's Civilization and Winston Groom's Forest Gump and the sequel Gump & Company.
The Gump books are funny enough to keep the attention of a fourth grader, and teach modern American history along the way.
We really, really, really have to figure a way to distribute the bounty of our bigger than ever economy a bit better, so professional journalism can continue.
In my mind it has become way too Liberal. Maybe I didn't realize it when I was growing up and reading it every month, but it certainly has changed.
Too bad really, in a time when there's so much opinion pieces and media outlets are all slanted one way or another, it would be nice to have a news organization which simply reported the news and didn't have a vested interest in some political party which slanted its views.
It's impossible to completely eliminate bias though - even absent opinion pieces or editorializing, there's going to be some small level in the stories you choose to cover.
*ed
Wow, downvotes? Anyone care to rebut instead of click and run?
I think NPR is seen as having a liberal slant. NPR has done some very in depth studies of this, counting liberal stories vs conservative, and determined that there was no bias. (I remember hearing this on NPR ;-). However, Republicans are convinced of this bias, and keep trying to cut their funding.
I used to listen to NPR quite a bit on my commute, and I did think they were to the left. (I'm not saying that's a bad thing, mind you.)
I find PBS news coverage more balanced, but a bit dry as well.
A recent example: in a snippet about some magazine's "First Lady Cookie Recipe Cook-off", the invited commentator was a writer for Jezebel.com, a feminist political blog, and while they ostensibly offered a chance for rebuttal, the Jezebel commentator spoke for about a minute and they read the three-words justification from the publisher: "People like it" as a response. One may ask, "Why did they give venue to this commentator, whose opinion is obviously skewed hard to one direction and outside the mainstream concept, and not at least give equal time to someone from Focus on the Family or something?" The answer is, "NPR likes Jezebel more, and wants to promote commentators that will give the audience the perception that this is a sexist/unequal thing".
You can advocate for tight purse strings while protecting natural beauty for everyone of current and future generations.
I think your sentiment is a bit revealing of the divisiveness present in national political discourse. Supporting the park service shouldn't be seen as left or right, it should be seen as cost benefit analysis that a particular congressperson has made.
In the present political climate, one of the political parties has (incubated?/)latched onto the generalized anti-government sentiment that came to a head last year around the Occupy movement.
Since National Parks and nature preserves are handled under a government organization, they represent something which that one political party has made a priority to remove in this round of politicking.
I wish there was a news source Left of me! It would be fascinating.
The NYT does the same thing, occasioning much laughter and derision from the right. We can't decide if they're being dishonest or if their frame of reference is such that they really believe they're being evenhanded.
As a conservative, I'm convinced NPR is biased. I listen to it every day on the way to work, since it's still preferable to commercial radio (even donated a couple times), but there's no doubt in my mind whoever is calling the shots would love to see the president reelected.
It's not so much how the news gets covered but what gets covered. If this week's DNC talking point is Bain Capital, NPR is covering decades-old events at Bain. If it's "War on Women" then we get to hear from hoary old feminists spouting questionable statistics. If Romney raised more money than Obama this month we get stories on Citizen United, but when Obama raises more money we get stories on just how motivated his supporters are. Benghazi was a big news story until it became apparent the ambassador died in an actual planned attack instead of a mob pissed off about a movie. Then the story disappeared completely.
I don't have any problem with the way they cover stories, for the most part, though occasionally I wince at the way things are described. The big problem is the selection.
The other issue is that we assume that stories that are predominately negative means bias, when it doesn't necessarily. Impartiality does not necessarily mean that we think both sides are equally valid. It's sort of like following this abortion/birth control debate. No matter what you're opinion, there is no bias in thinking that Joe Walsh and Todd Akin are full of shit. They are, period. It would be a disservice to say otherwise.
I have to disagree. I'm pretty sure if I wanted to put in the time I could show that NPR reports, say, 90% of the national stories that hurt Romney but only 60% of national stories that hurt Obama.
Sure, stories about Joe Walsh and Todd Akin should be there. But so should stories about Benghazi and gunwalker.
And it's as popular to civilly discuss as politics, religion, discrimination, etc.
Now, as it turns out, that happens to be my sweet spot, so I love listening to the echo chamber - but I realize there is a HUGE sector of society (perhaps enough to elect a president) that believes in Carbon/Coal/Oil/Pipelines as the foundation of the US energy economy. Those views, as a policy, are severely under-reported on NPR.
Now - I listen to NPR because I believe those alternative views are inane - but that doesn't stop me from recognizing NRP's bias.
Unfortunately, these days, people are so used to having their own (biased, in almost all cases) views dished back to them, that an unbiased news source is unlikely to garner much in the way of attention.
That's fine with me - I can live without stories of the Rapture, government taking our guns away, welfare queens, communist (muslim now?) menace, etc... I'm comfortable in my little liberal shell.
I wasn't aware that renewable energy was a partisan issue.
For example, a handful of "green energy" companies received stimulus funding and later went bankrupt; this has led to a great deal of partisan bickering over whether Obama is wasting taxpayer money, or whether we should leave it to private enterprise to figure out renewable energy. So while the concept of renewable energy is non-partisan, policies/discussion relating to funding and regulation of renewable energy can be quite partisan.
EDIT: http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/10/partisan-divide-over-... - see the chart near the bottom, titled "Partisan Gaps over Energy Policies".
I would say something similar is the case with respect to many other issues that sound non-partisan, like national parks -- peripheral issues like government funding and restrictions on private enterprise (logging on federal land?) can lead to a fairly significant partisan divide, even on issues that don't seem controversial.
There's some kind of blindspot with traditional media: people say "oh, they couldn't handle the competition from the blogs" but that was only after decades of reducing the local papers into skeleton crews - if your newspaper is little more than a platform for syndicating Reuters stories verbatim then yeah, you're asking to be disrupted.
Now, their recent "Heaven is Real" cover on the other hand…
Makes me wish I had saved all the in-flight Newsweek's through the years.
It's been a while since I've had the chance to read them 'head to head', but The Economist pretty much blows it out of the water.
I find Atlantic, Financial Times, CS Monitor far superior.
And yeah, The Economist takes a lot longer to get through. But the advent of the web has been particularly hard on news magazines. I wonder how much longer even The Economist will be around.
http://wtfcnn.com/
Hopefully, for whomever is in charge, they can make the type of transition the Atlantic started making years and years ago. But to be totally honest I doubt it. They don't really have much to offer.
In my own personal news consumption, there is a stratification going on: For every-day information, I'm 90% in the social media (mostly Twitter) camp. For insightful analysis, I'm going to specialized publications such as the Atlantic or the Economist. Not that I'm an expert on media, but I wonder if that type of polarization will continue, with the guys and gals in-between becoming dinosaurs.
It was bold to keep printing and mailing the thing for the last 5 years as it became absolutely clear that printing news on paper has no future at all.
I'm surprised that so many major daily newspapers are still being printed today. That shoe is going to drop any month now.
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