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Comment by setopt | Hacker News Reader

Sounds very appealing. Anyone here have experience with it? If I want to try it, should I go print or digital? How is the writing compared to say The Economist or other more mainstream options?

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How is the economist these days? Around a decade ago I read it cover to cover every week for 18 months, but during the brexkt referendum they seemed to go into a tantrum and half of the magazine was always about how brexit was 100% a bad thing. Even if I agreed with them I don't like "100%" biased news because at some point it's like propaganda. I understand they were started in support of trade deals but even so. Has it improved?

I've lapsed my subscription because it has, in my opinion, gotten a bit too clickbait-y and many of the articles are sort of thin rehashes of already covered material. It is still better than most, but also fairly pricy.

> Even if I agreed with them I don't like "100%" biased news

I can understand why this might seem like a good take to have but sometimes you need 100% biased news because some things are 100% biased. Things like climate change is real or genocide is bad should not be controversial takes. Convincing people that there are two sides to an argument is exactly how you end up with sensationalism and extreme views that push the Overton window.

I understand and appreciate your point, but takes like brexit are nuanced. They might be overall bad, but they will always have some benefits and in my opinion journalism (especially economic journalism) should explain those benefits even if the point is to show that they are more than cancelled out by the negatives. Without this kind of reporting this is exactly how the Overton window gets moved.

I think that when it comes to topics we can vote on, saying X is bad because media says it's totally bad is not really an informed opinion.

Agreed. But I think newspapers like The Economist have argued points like "Brexit is bad" quite well and it's not very nuanced because however you slice it, it has been catastrophic for the UK unless you're a corporate lawyer who has suddenly gotten a lot of new business.

Saying something deserves nuance because 1 out of 99 experts disagrees is exactly how you end up with increasing measles cases or adding 6 more lanes to a highway.

If there were any upsides to brexit I've never heard what they were. (Though, also: not a brit)

Faster and cheaper negotiation of covid vaccines plus negotiated first delivery of them because of not requiring the sign off of every country first was one highly publicised example

It seems fine now

You mean "The E-Communist"?

Also interested in what their biases may be. Being "slow" isn't really enough, they also need to be fair and honest.

Having subscribeed for years, I find it very good on that front. I haven't detected any political bias, and I suspect they would say that fairness and honesty is what the "journalism" half of "slow journalism" means.

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