Hacker News Reader

Comment by kelnos | Hacker News Reader

Since I read about the new publisher, I've been considering canceling my WaPo subscription. Even before that, I do feel like WaPo's quality has been degrading; they've been engaging in some low-quality, disingenuous both-sides-ism, and have hired some truly awful writers.

It's so hard to know where to put my money when it comes to journalism. In general I don't pay for online journalism, because I don't really have any "allegiance" to one publication, and I consume most of my news from places like HN (that is, aggregators). So I find it hard to justify paying $30/mo to any one website when I might read only 2 or 3 articles a month there. (I ended up with a WaPo subscription after a friend gifted me one for a year, and then I decided to continue it after it ran out.)

View on HN

FWIW, I've found the most joy by subscribing to very local, independent news outlets. For me in the Twin Cities, that means places like RacketMN and MN Reformer and Minneapolis Voices. (I also subscribe to Ars Technica because I think they're a good tech/science news aggregator.) In general I've found the really big names, and even my local statewide newspaper, to be too enthralled with "both sides-ism" and eager to publish rage-bait trash, so they don't deserve my money.

I think 'independent' is the operative word. Here in Britain, almost no local newspapers are independent. The majority are owned by a company called Reach PLC (formerly Trinity Mirror, probably renamed to avoid association with their history of phone hacking). You can tell that they're focused more on the SEO than the story - the word-salad headlines give that away, by how they attempt to squeeze in as many vague keywords as possible whilst omitting basic facts. They do genuinely report on local affairs, but it feels to me like most of the articles are prepared nationally from sources such as social media rather than by local correspondents.

Unfortunately I don't know what the answer is - non-profit newspapers are at least mostly immune from consolidation by Murdoch-style media giants, but they seem to survive only on existing loyalty. I've wondered what it would take to establish a genuinely local newspaper for my area, but to compete against the dross of Reach and News International seems like it would need deep pockets and a strong tolerance for debt. Ideas welcome!

I have no idea if this translates across the pond, but over here what's been happening is the newspapers that were around in the 80s and 90s and died in the 2000s and 2010s left a bunch of unemployed journalists around. Occasionally, a handful of the brave ones will come together to start up a new news outlet, usually with a much smaller and more casual scope than the outlets they left. Some succeed, some don't, but that's where we're at right now. I try to support the ones I like.

As for how to find them, it's largely social media & word of mouth, and maybe some advertising if they pitch it just right. Maybe poke around the social media accounts for some journalists from local outlets you do know about and see if they have some links to new places you haven't heard of.

(I don't know if it's just a language thing, but I definitely wouldn't call these outlets "newspapers." Certainly there's no print component to any of these.)

> FWIW, I've found the most joy by subscribing to very local, independent news outlets.

Watch local news outlets when there are local elections, you might find that their independence was just thay they were dependent to someone you agree with. It's very hard to find truly independent media, because unethical media eats their lunch.

Wow, man, far out. Pass the doobie, I think we're about to bust the whole system wide open.

I think it depends on what you’re looking for in journalism. I think America is divided into three groups: those who want news that only speaks to their political values, those who are just looking for the basic headlines, and those who want substantive news, but without the political or opinionated persuasion. I sense that the breakdown is that people are not getting one or the other from mainstream media.

That's a good point, and I'm sometimes not really sure what I'm looking for. I don't want to live only in my liberal/progressive bubble, but I also don't want to see right-wing propaganda pieces.

I'm fine with partisan articles to some extent, but I do often just want deep, well-researched stories about what's happening in the world, without partisan slant. Granted, anyone who writes is going to bring their own biases to their journalism, no matter how much they try to avoid it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com