I'm a firm believer in quality over quantity when it comes to news. Google News has gotten increasingly annoying though, forcing me harder toward the "personalized" results, the kind of filter bubble I'm intentionally trying to avoid.
What worked well for me was getting a print subscription to the Economist. They definitely have a bias (particularly in their editorials), but it's mostly of the "free trade" variety, which is pretty easy to account for. On the other hand, their world coverage, particularly Africa and Middle East, is leaps and bounds better than anything you'll get online for free.
Plus the print medium is well suited for the wind-down time before bed, when I'm trying to disengage from screens. As a bonus, there's an exactly 0% chance you get click-baited into reading something inflammatory when you're consuming news on a piece of paper. Sadly they recently force-bundled print with digital, so you're stuck paying ~$80/year if you sign up during one of the frequent sales. $1.50/week is still well worth the cost of admission for me.
My personal favorite recommendation in this vein is The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ . They've got some great writers and editors and often deliver pretty unique insights. Their articles tend towards long-ish-form, but not nearly as long as e.g. the New Yorker. They're a little less world-focused and more US-centric, but not completely. There is some bias (isn't there always?), but I've seen them cover a single issue from multiple POVs using multiple writers before. They have a print edition as well, for ~$70/year (includes digital access as well).
I friggin love the Atlantic even though most of the time they have a way different political view than me. They don't hide their view but instead of assuming it's universal they give details and context for their views, where as the Economist seems to hide their agenda and present the underlying story to lead you to their point of view based on the facts and details they choose to report. The Atlantic has discourse and discussion, which is what I want. And they are not afraid to challenge their own core ideas. They are like my liberal hippie parents raising me with critical thinking skills, "you are free to have your opinion, here's ours and here's how we came to them". It's hard to explain the difference, especially as I agree (or I should say want to agree) more often with the Economist's politics.
I think that they are pretty clear about their agenda to be honest. E.g. they explained and even gave a name to their stance ("extreme centre"), they openly endorse candidates in many elections worldwide, they often include sentences in articles such as "this paper believes that..." etc.
I don't agree with some of their points, but by making them explicit they also make them easy to filter out IMHO
The Economist has a Prospectus which spells out its ideology.
I'd known of and read the ... newspaper ... for three decades before learning of this and reading it.
PROSPECTUS of a weekly paper, to be published every Saturday, and to be called THE ECONOMIST, which will contain— First.—ORIGINAL LEADING ARTICLES, in which free-trade principles will be most rigidly applied to all the important questions of the day—political events—and parliamentary discussions; and particularly to all such as relate immediately to revenue, commerce, and agriculture; or otherwise affect the material interests of the country. ...
That is, The Economist is, and always has been, overtly free-trade propaganda. (Though one might argue that the meaning(s) and connotations of that term have evolved since first proposed in 1843.)
The Wikipedia article is quite misleading; the current neoliberal movement absolutely leans left. In modern usage, neoliberal refers to a particular type of liberal/Democrat.
>They don't hide it. I think that they are pretty clear about their agenda to be honest. E.g. they explained and even gave a name to their stance ("extreme centre")
My point exactly, that's anything but clear and honest! Calling their views, which are objectively right-wing neoliberal capitalist, calling them "centre" or "moderate" is part of an attempt to naturalise (if that makes sense) their worldview into something that is objective, common-sense, and neutral.
As in an old joke that rings true to anyone living outside the US, in US politics you have, on the one hand, an extreme right-wing party, far to the right of anything in other countries; and on the other hand, you have the Republican party.
It's absolutely true that on cultural issues (particularly rights of minorities), the Democratic party and even the Economist is actually left or even far left compared to many world countries.
But on economic matters, the Economist's positions, and indeed Democratic party positions, are indeed far right-wing of what you'll see virtually anywhere else (maybe other 5-eyes countries are getting closer?).
Also, on foreign policy, the media and political parties in the US almost speak with a single voice, which is often, again, far outside mainstream opinion in the rest of the world.
Yes, left and right are used in many different senses. They're impossible to pin down as they mean different things to different people.
I sometimes think it's useful to consider political ideologies as existing somewhere along a spectrum of collectivist to individualist.
Communism would be far to the collectivist end of the spectrum. Socialism less so.
Most neoliberals wouldn't subscribe to an extreme form of libertarianism as they are predominantly concerned with free market capitalism. But neoliberalism is definitely on the individualist end of the spectrum. An example would be promoting privatisation and discouraging government (collective) ownership.
Personally, I think that a mix of individualism and collectivism is best, and this is indeed what you'll find in many places (including, to a large extent, the US).
From this perspective, you can't call yourself both the "extreme centre" and neoliberal. It would be like calling yourself "extreme centre" and socialist.
Right: conservative. Policy designed to preserve corporate interests and wealthy elite. Often masquerading as “looking after the middle class” - when really at best they get some trickle down benefits. Selfishly You should be right leaning if you are a significant owner of capital or have a very high chance of that (they will convince you that everyone has this chance).
Left: Progressive (in that it looks to reform the existing structure). Policy design to assist the working class (wage earners). It typically looks to take from corporates/wealthy elite and redistribute. Selfishly You should be left leaning if you don’t own significant capital and derive most of your income from wages.
Unselfishly you should err on the side of the left as it is aiming for a “greater good”.
It basically oversimplifies "right" to selfish ideology
and "left" to ideology of "greater good".
For once I would argue, it is for the greater good, if "selfish" individual rights are increased - and apart from that, I think using the left right spectrum is not very helpful for anything, but dividing society into tribal thinking.
Capitalism, or more specifically inequality created the tribes. Denying their existence is to purposefully avoid looking for a solution.
It’s not an ideology of greater good. I mean it literally in the utilitarian sense: left thinking, focusing on improving the plight of wage earners literally effects more people and is a greater good.
Improving/preserving wealthy elites will naturally benefit fewer people.
These are facts, with evidence. I can go deeper if you find this simplification too blunt. It isn’t overly simplified it. It describes what the left right spectrum means, and yes I’m applied a value judgement, but I can back up my value judgement with facts.
I’m not an extremist in my views though, and I will accept democratic processes, and there is benefit to floating around the spectrum, rather than committing to a single point.
"Improving/preserving wealthy elites will naturally benefit fewer people.
These are facts, with evidence"
You are implying, that it is a fact that right leaning people want to preserve wealthy elites.
But this is not, what I heard from right leaning people as their goals.
"Capitalism, or more specifically inequality created the tribes."
And I believe, tribes existed way before capitalism.
So I believe, that you are indeed quite extremist in your ideology, if you know as a fact, that left is good and right is bad.
There are many, many different contradicting views and concepts on the right as well on the left. To some I agree, to many I do not.
But as an example, the nazis are considered quite right usually. But it is nationalsocialism. The concept of the greater good for the people (of one race). So they are left then?
I rather think the whole left right concept is flawed and not helpful.
There are not contradicting views. If you look at them with a lenses of preserving wealth they align quite neatly. I’d like to see a counter example.
Nazis are the very definition of preserving the wealth of a few. It’s just you have seen the words “National Socialism” and assumed that meant left. You’ll find the labels are high jacked quite often. But left and right remain more consistent.
Are you saying that trying to bring more benefit to wage earners is not good?
Could you give an example of right wing policy that wasn’t focused on preserving wealthy elites?
"It’s just you have seen the words “National Socialism” and assumed that meant left."
No, I just happen to live in an area (in germany) with lots of nazis and had to engage with their ideology a lot.
There definitely exist anticapitalist, socialist fascist today, as did back then. Those are the ones, that were put down in Nazi germany in 1934 in the Röhm Putsch, so they did not rose to power, but nevertheless exist.
They do believe in a socialist aryan society. So the greater good and negating of the individual, but limited to a certain race.
So how do they fit in, in the left = altruistic, right = selfish metric?
They are not individualists. They are willing to sacrifice themself for Volk und Vaterland.
"There are not contradicting views"
And with contradicting I meant in general. The socialist pagan Nazis do not really agree with the capitalist, catholic fascist of spain for example, but both are labeld right.
While anarchosyndicalist do not really share much with stalinist, yet both are labeled left.
Seems you’ve applied values of your own. I didn’t frame one as selfish and the other as altruistic. I framed one as spreading wealth and one as consolidating it. I gave “selfish” examples for both.
If you care about preserving wealth with elites that is right wing… whatever weird political label you give it.
If you care about distributing it to non elites that is left wing.
Stalinists are not “left” they were about wealth and power consolidation.
This is why right and left are useful measures because it sees passes all the bullshit names/political measures and provides a simple scale: are you redistributing wealth (left)? Are you consolidating wealth (right)? Are you doing something in between (centrist)
No, they wanted to move wealth, and consolidate it. So you could be fooled into initially thinking it was a leftist agenda when it was “take wealth away from rich bankers”. But it quite quickly deteriorated to something else.
It’s important distinction that at the extremes both left and right don’t look that different. It is essentially use extreme violence to achieve wealth distribution/consolidation. Typically once someone is in control of such power even if they set out/pretended to distribute they pivot to consolidation. I guess this is what is meant by “power corrupts”
So 17 levels below a comment I made about the news just making everyone angry and addicted to it, people are still commenting about whether Nazis are economically left or right. I guess that tracks.
Oh, people can always fight about and against nazis.
But I am not angry, just mildly annoyed, that my point does not get through.
(my point was the left right metric is not helpful - but when applied, you will find not a homogenous group, but right leaning nazis, as well as left leaning nazis, when defining right or left with distributing or conserving wealth. Another common definition would be racist, or not.
Perhaps we were talking past each other. You were saying left and right is useless because you can have left and right nazi's or left and right socialists. I was saying left and right is useful: Nazi and Socialist are the meaningless label.
I mean, it's true if you reinterpret "selfish" as "individualist". At the end of the day its "prioritize concerns of the individual at the expense of society" versus "prioritize concerns of society at the expense of individuals".
I disagree. Because in your statement you are hiding the fact that the “expense of the individuals” is a tiny number compared to the number of “members of society”.
Not American, so I wouldn’t know. But from outside the Democratic Party looked more right than left. Though I guess it’s mostly left of the republicans.
It's an effort to distance themselves from those left/right labels that are so thoroughly debased as to afford little meaning[1].
The term "extreme centre" is far from new. It was used in 1955 by Geoffrey Crowther, editor at the time, when he said "the extreme centre is the paper's historical position"
It's fine to be upset about the Overton window of American politics, but I don't think it's too egregious that an American publication describe their politics within the usual political language of their country.
Or, at the very least, it's not deceptive to call themselves "centre" as neoliberals in a country where the majority understand "centre" to mean "neoliberals" (even if they don't actually know what "neoliberals" means.)
The Economist is absolutely not "right wing." In fact, it's anything but right wing. So that you say that is obectively true makes me wonder about your agenda here and whether you're making these statements in good faith.
The Atlantic is superb. Their pandemic coverage has been my go-to for that subject since the beginning. They’re consistently one, two steps ahead on best mitigation strategies for public policy and have been since the beginning. They were talking about things like HEPA filtration and open windows when everyone else was stuck on masks and hand-washing, for example.
At some point the employee wellness budget is just burning a hole in your pocket and so you put it to a vote. I wouldn’t feel too bad about it. Deepak is a charlatan and everyone knows it anyway :)
Deepak Chopra is a prominent and controversial figure in "wellness" and "alternative medicine", promoting "quantum healing" and claiming that it can cure cancer and so on. It's widely accused of being psuedoscience.
The Atlantic. The New Yorker. The Economist. These are neutral to left facing. In a feeble effort to avoid being put in a different bubble, does anyone have something that an educated republican/conservative would read?
> That someone can honestly say with a straight face that "the Economist is left-facing" speaks volumes to the sad state of the Overton window.
Or that they are viewing things entirely through the lens of American culture war dimension of politics (where the Economist might fit in the neutral to left-facing description), rather than the usual left-right economic spectrum, where it is agressively center-right.
The Economist is old school liberal: let companies do what they want (US "right-wing"), let people do what they want (US "left-wing"), but unlike US libertarians, also have some regulation and support in place to prevent the worst abuses.
You keep repeating the Economist is rightwing in this thread, but it seems most here disagree with you. I mean, Fox, Breitbart or the NY Post are pretty much rightwing, and the Economist does not even compare, both in tone and in content. What puts them in the right wing camp according to yo?
Growing up in NZ, If you championed free market capitalism and privatisation, you would definitely be considered right wing. That is the Economist's bread and butter.
That NZ's major left wing party was and is still a big proponent of these policies didn't change that.
Today, it could be argued that neoliberalism has moved the overton window, but many, many people still don't buy it.
I'm not sure it does "champion privatisation". I've read some pretty damning reports on bad privatisation, for example about the problems from rail privatisation, as well as on monopolistic practice by big companies. I would say it's rather more nuanced than private good, public bad.
What is "left" and what is "right" is a question of consensus, of course. The Eke is surely considered right-wing in Britain, and likely in most of Europe.
Wall Street Journal - there's a quip from someone that when he wanted to read things he agreed with, he opened Jacobin, when he wanted to know what was going on in the world, he went to WSJ. Being based entirely on serving money anchors you to a certain reality that can't be swung to far left or right. The journalism has had some really great scoops these last few years - they broke a lot of the Facebook drama, and some tax evasion shenanigans - while the editorials tend to be pretty principled conservatism ("we'll give a voice to anyone, but we'll put a letter from the Editors in where we call them liars" seems to be their approach to Trump and co).
National Review is similar to The Atlantic in that their long form pieces meant for print publication are wonderful, and tend to be rather nuanced, whiletheir short pieces meant for immediate internet consumption are heavily biased. They're interesting in that they take a "big tent" approach, and will allow a lont of dissenting voices to appear under their mast head - this was always true but became really rather evident during the 2016 elections.
The Dispatch is made up of authors and editors who didn't like that Trump supporters were allowed under the "Big Tent" of the National Review. It's edited by Jonah Goldberg, and David French, who shows up as a guest writer for the Atlantic every now and then.
Agree there. Econlib podcasts by Russ Robert of the Hoover Institute are fantastic. He has a range of guests on, seeks to understand opposing views and it’s more of an academic discussion.
His podcasts about the 2008 financial crisis were fantastic.
None of those publications are leftist in the least. However, they do all happen to share a very strong neoliberal bias—which would put one in more of a corporate centrist bubble—akin to watching just CNN and MSNBC on cable. If you want news without extra commentary, just go straight to Reuters and/or AP.
Realclearpolitics has started providing some original content to go with their aggregation. Tends to be non-reactionary 'traditional' Republican leaning.
Here's another vote for The Atlantic. They are also the only online website (AFAIK) where, once you pay for a subscription, you actually get an ad-free experience.
Atlantic truly is all over the map. They'll have articles like the watershed Coddling of the American Mind from 2015, but then shortly after it's nothing but Trump 24/7 like every other outlet.
I can fully attest to the quality of the Economist but I caution anyone to subscribe because they don’t provide any way to easily unsubscribe.
It’s either to call some phone number or attempt it via live chat.
I tried the second option and the representative just went on with the script trying to fatigue me out of it, no matter what I said.
My local library has a certain number of electronic subscriptions, so I am able to read The Economist on my iPad with the Libby app for "free" (i.e. paid for by by local taxes).
I would GLADLY pay for a print subscription, because I greatly prefer physical magazines over digital. But whether it's magazines, satellite radio, or whatever... I'm just not subscribing to anything known for not letting people go.
The economist cancellation process is an email last time I did it (I subscribe in spurts). Not as ideal as a button but not as egregious as requiring a phone call or something.
When it comes to magazine subscriptions, I just cancel payment via credit card dispute, it auto-resolves itself. Generally I frown upon this kind of thing but yeah it's so hard to cancel that you sort of have to pick the nuclear option with them.
Same here, but I have no ethical qualms about going nuclear. I don’t have time to run the maze of bs dark patterns that companies concoct to try to force me into paying them.
Whenever I’m trying to cancel anything, if there isn’t an obvious and easy way to do so, I just send an email to whatever customer help/etc. mailbox I can find notifying them of the cancellation with 30 days notice. In the mail I tell them that after 30 days I will claw back any payment via my credit card.
I’ve only had to do it twice, and only had to claw back 1 payment, but I’ve never had an issue.
I've always subscribed through a third party (DiscountMags) and it's been painless. In fact I've had the opposite problem, where my Economist doesn't show up one week and I start cursing the USPS until I realize it's because I forgot to renew.
Hopefully the FTCs actions last year will put an end to the kind of cancellation hell you describe. At least for US customers anyway.
I also subscribe to The Economist through DiscountMags. They have a price lock feature now where they will auto-renew you at the same price as the previous term. I locked in a print+digital deal a couple years ago and now it's set and forget. Typically, they renew you about 2-3 months before the old expiration, so there's no risk of missing issues and any leftover time gets added onto the new subscription period.
I subscribe to the Economist. My subscription lasts one year, and doesn't automatically renew. I get renewal reminders and renew at my leisure. None of that arguing with people on the phone.
My favorite Saturday night activity when I was living in Lausanne was to go to McDonalds with that week’s economist and just read it over a prolonged dinner. With was 2006, and both the magazine and meal cost me 10 CHF each! The Economist’s BigMac index was pretty accurate and, at the time, very ironic to me.
Be careful with that. There may very well be fine print that allows them to continue taking funds after the initial period, same as with a credit card. A personal check (in the US) contains all the info a company needs to debit your bank account.
I actually switched from google news to bing news, just because their user preference algorithms are so underdeveloped. So it's essentially like not being in a filter bubble.
It seems like that still runs into the issues that are outlined in the blog post, however (not accomplishing anything, shallow conversations about current events, better ways to stay informed, and feeling like you're doing something when you're not). In general it's hard to overcome these issues as long as you're still reading something considered news.
I think a good exercise is to spend a few weeks using archive.org to read the news from a few years back (or old back issues of The Economist, if you like). It's useful to see how many things people were obsessed over are now forgotten, and how many predictions ended up failing to materialize.
We should also probably be honest with ourselves and admit that reading the news is mostly done for entertainment, and it very well might not be any better than people who spend their time reading celebrity gossip rags.
The article leads with drawing a distinction between pop news and more traditional journalism:
"To be clear, I’m mostly talking about following TV and internet newscasts here. This post isn’t an indictment of journalism as a whole."
Good print journalism does go into depth, it does give useful background, and it does teach you about the proximate causes of events. It is not full of pundits trying to score internet points or stoke outrage/fear for views/clicks.
I think there's still value in having an informed population. If you don't have a good understanding of the state of the world it's going to be very difficult to change it in a deliberative and positive way. If you're informed you can make rational decisions on things like giving and voting. I don't know how you can do that otherwise.
I'm not convinced there's a better way of getting an understanding of what's going on in the world than reading a well-curated digest of what's going on in the world. You can certainly go deeper on a subset of the topics via specialized outlets, or long-form books and articles, but good journalism should give you more than the superficial understanding of the issue.
That said, I don't dispute that well-crafted journalism can be stimulating intellectual entertainment. If I didn't enjoy it, I probably wouldn't read it.
> The article leads with drawing a distinction between pop news and more traditional journalism:
Sure, but I don't think it goes on to justify why that distinction is there. Particularly points 2 to 5 seem to work just as well as criticism of written media as TV.
> If you're informed you can make rational decisions on things like giving and voting...I'm not convinced there's a better way of getting an understanding of what's going on in the world than reading a well-curated digest of what's going on in the world.
I used to work a lot on politics at the local level and can't say that's been my experience. Much of the time, the things people's votes have the most impact on are barely covered in the media, or in many cases not covered at all. Including fairly important things, such as when our state party leadership suspended elections for two years and staying on past their terms. Almost zero news coverage.
If you want to be informed and involved in ways that actually impact those around you, I'd say involvement in community organizations is important, reading the news not so much. As his fifth point says, it's easy to pretend you're being an informed citizen by indulging in a media habit when you're doing nothing of the sort.
Another issue is that everyone can see how new organizations they don't like can leave people misinformed, but never consider that news organizations they like can do the same. Again, from what I've seen, misinformation is fairly common. It's not even necessarily done for nefarious purposes. A busy reporter might just have time to look at a press release, while local organizations will have people that often go into much more depth and look at the actual meeting minutes or the exact wording of particular pieces of legislation.
People should think of concrete things they're trying to accomplish, not just vague notions of "being informed." I bet that someone who ignores the news and spends an hour looking at Vote411 and reading about candidates on the web before they fill out a ballot is going to make more informed voting decisions than a news junkie who follows national and international news 24/7, already knows who they're going to vote for at the national level, and completely ignores downballot races (a surprisingly large portion of voters fit this description).
Also, focusing on people/orgs who must try to accomplish something in the face of significant news is a good non-inflammatory way to get the real story on any current event. Visit professional organization websites, professional trade rags, actual financial newsletters. You may not be able to sort out real signal from the noise of Mainstream media, but manufacturers, military, diplomats, maritime, etc. can’t themselves afford to be confused nor do politicians want them confused. Those “essentials” will get the real facts and report what they can through their professional organizations and trade publications. Read them, listen to them, and watch what they do. They don’t get flustered and don’t make their money by inflaming or distorting.
And remember, there is no such thing as “The News”, only “some news”.
Honestly I think people put too much stock in (a very flawed notion of) biased vs unbiased. Everything has a bias. Everyone has a lens they perceive events through and you can’t write without that lens having an impact. I challenge anyone to present a truly “objective” piece of historical writing or news from any era.
In general, I agree with you, and often make the same point whenever the notion of "objectivity" in US news media comes up.
However, just within the last couple of days I read an article (it was linked here on HN but immediately flagged) called "Why Progressives Hate Black People", published on substack.
Now, the article itself contained quite a lot of interesting factual information about homelessness in the SF Bay area, some of which I was not aware of (and checked out to verify it.
However, the overall framing and the tone throughout the writing was just a completely unnecessary and even misleading hack that tried to prove a point that doesn't really seem particularly relevant to the story, only the agenda of the author.
Contrast this with reporting in an outlet like the NYT. Complain all you want about the NYT's egregious journalistic errors (and there are many), the overwhelming majority of their reportage does seem to me like a good faith effort to inform the reader about something. It may get the details or even the entire story wrong, but it isn't engaging in outright and unnecessary polemicization on the topic. Yes, the writers and editors still had a point of view, and perhaps even a desired conclusion, but don't feel it necessary to bash you over the head with "LOOK AT THIS! LOOK AT THIS! THE HORROR!"
Consequently, even though I continue to not believe in "objective news" or "objective journalism", there is still "hack journalism" and "good faith journalism" (not sure about those terms), and they are not the same.
Objectivity is an ideal to be stived for. It's a reasonable point of view to suggest that striving for that ideal is worthwhile. When I think about no engineering design is a perfect trade-off, it becomes obvious that acknowledging this inevitable flaw does not make every trade-off equally useful. Some get closer to an ideal for the circumstance, usually they have to sweat to get there. And so it is with history and news reporting.
The next error becomes "If these biased, partisan sources agree then it must be objectively true." Which leads to Raytheon being absolutely above criticism and disagreement with anything they're pushing as in their financial interests as worthy of being totally dismissed as "Being in league and on the payroll of Stalin or Bin Laden or Sadam Hussein or <insert latest evil bastard here>" Rather than being anlyzed on its actual merits or lack therof. In league with the enemy while showing zero evidence of it should be disqualifying as so biased that the source is totally compromised (by sheer idiocy if nothing else).
Objectivity as an ideal often prompts people with otherwise good integrity to both-sides issues where one side is clearly malicious or dishonest. Objectivity isn't the goal of journalism and shouldn't be: truth and clarity should be.
You're using the word "Objectivity" with a very different meaning to me.
"Truth and clarity" - this as an ideal IS objectivity. Not some half-baked, half-way position between competing lies which is anything but objectivity.
Ah yes. “Objectivity” is often used as lacking bias. Truth and clarity require taking a position and advocating it. The only way that’s unbiased is if there isn’t anything at stake in the truth or clarity thereof.
Objectively the acceleration due to gravity on earth is 9.8 meters per second squared. The above statement is both true and clear within certain bounds on precision to anyone not playing sillies and who isn't very stupid. That example is a really easy one. It obviously gets harder the more complex the subject matter becomes.
This post-modern, "there's no such thing as objective reality" and one must take "a position" rather than striving to achieve objectivity is just nonsense and should always have been treated as such and should always be treated as such.
My point is not “there’s no such thing as objective reality”, it’s that for issues with more room for dispute than your example being objective in the sense you clearly mean sometimes requires rejecting ideas inconsistent with one’s understanding of reality.
As an example which recently came up in a local (to me, in Seattle) news context: it will soon be legal to ride bikes without a helmet. Unintuitively, this has safety benefits for cyclists. Pointing this out is often met with ridicule. But it’s true, and once known, a person with integrity must reject that intuition.
"Objectively I'm right and all the positions I hold and advocate for are beyond reproach. Objectively anyone making less effort than me to make the world a better place in the manner of my preference is a biased, bad faith actor." --Things not said out loud.
Striving for objectivity is allowing for ones own bias and acknowledging the validity of facts and arguments that do not support one's own view on the matter. In reporting it is attempting to make one's own view on the matter irrelevant to the content written. Objectivity is removing one's extreme loathing concerning a current or former president to acknowledge facts that show that person in a favourable light and the exact converse. It is not a half way point between two competing arguments among many, many more on the matter. It does not mean if R & D official or semi-official positions agree it must be correct.
It is utterly bizarre how often people don't understand this as a valid point of view or simply want to derail the point for something else they want to argue for.
> In reporting it is attempting to make one's own view on the matter irrelevant to the content written.
This is impossible. Part of the determination of what to report is what’s important to even report on in the first place. Omission, or emphasis of stories otherwise reported objectively correctly, is a bias too.
The rest of your comment… I sincerely can’t tell if you’re objecting to anything I said or just generally ranting apropos of nothing above. So I don’t know how to address that.
Yes. A perfect engineering trade-off is impossible. So flipping what. Do you want someone's best work? Do you want someone who is good at the job of engineering design's best work designing a machine you have to trust? Perfection is impossible as you point out.
Objective reality exists. I find those trying to achieve objectivity in their reporting of that objective reality worthwhile. You don't. Good luck.
Wow, coming back to this a few days later, you’re a jerk. A jerk who literally doesn’t care to engage with the things you’re arguing with. Objective my foot.
In fact, a good 50% of my feeds are 'World News' feeds from other countries. it's the best way to see alternate points of view I think, and then as a moderately intelligent[1] adult, I can form my own opinion on the current state of affairs.
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[1] I'm not allowed to call myself 'smart' on HN, I got told off for it on a previous comment ;)
As a point of encouragement don't let some random internet bully discourage you from using a perfectly fine word like smart or from diminishing your self image. For all we know you're the smartest person in the world.
After one year of subscribing to the Economist I like it, but would prefer if it was a monthly newspaper with 1/4 of the content. Reading it throughout each week takes quite a lot of my reading time and I have a feeling that dedicating this time to books would be better. Monthly with well selected topics would be enough to stay informed of important current issues.
I definitely get a sinking feeling when I leave on vacation and come back to a two-issue backlog! There's more content in there than I typically consume in a week, so I've gotten more discerning on which articles I read. Skipping editorials, Britain, letters, and most columns seems to get it down to a manageable amount for my reading patterns. I also tend to skip any political coverage that's about what might happen in an upcoming election somewhere. I figure when it actually does happen I can read about it then.
This is a question for the folks who have been reading the Economist regularly for a while. What do you guys feel like you get out of reading the Economist over time? This is meant as a genuine question. So for example, I consume my news only via my Google News feed, so basically just a fast scan of the headlines and maybe a few news articles in depth. Does the Economist provide more details, more nuance, more depth? Do you guys feel it helps paint the bigger picture better then "regular" news media, a more erudite perspective?
I find just skimming headlines gives me facts but facts are kind of useless. For example you could tell an alien that the average human drinks 1 cup of milk a day and the alien would have a fact but be completely unable to contextualize it.
Longer form articles help you contextualize it.
Of course, you still have to be careful that take into the account the unintentional bias of the source (i.e. a 3/day milk drinker would tell the alien that people don’t drink enough milk, and they’re not lying… they just see life through their own experiences).
So you really need a combo of regular news media for facts and a variety of longer form sources for contextualization.
Yojo's comment matches my feelings fairly well. I would add as a corollary to the better 'slow burn' coverage that they have less 'flash in the pan' coverage as well. I.e. the weekly format of their print edition tends to filter out the most ephemeral stories and gives them time to provide more in-depth coverage of the stories that still seem to matter a few days or weeks later. This, combined with the space constraints provided by their print edition gives me the impression that articles that make it to the print edition are probably worth my time to read, even in cases where I'm not particularly interested in the topic.
A couple things, a lot of which boils down to them actually having journalists on staff who go out and research stories in person. A lot of digital outlets are just regurgitating Associated Press articles with little/no value add.
1) Breadth of coverage. The Economist is much more of a world magazine. When I scan Google News I get basically no Africa coverage. The economist has a section for it.
2) Depth of coverage. The Economist will have journalists reporting on location in places like China and India. They get direct interviews with people who are experiencing the phenomenon being reported on. I rarely if ever see that kind of reporting on Google News, especially not behind a paywall.
3) Better coverage of "slow burn" stories. e.g. There's a lot of interesting stuff happening in Africa right now with infrastructure development. China has its big Belt and Road initiative that's more or less forced western governments to present a viable alternative or get boxed out. The west has bungled the response, and China is now dominant in financing new infrastructure projects throughout Africa. It will likely reap benefits for decades, both in economic and military positioning. There's no one "story" here to make a headline that would bubble up in Google News, but it's a really fascinating ongoing geopolitical saga.
4) Hitting interesting angles on stories. Last week there was an article about Russian troop buildup around Ukraine, but they wrote it from the angle of civilian surveillance technology. By stitching together private satellite imagery, TikTok and YouTube footage they were able to tell that troops that were ostensibly "withdrawn" had just been redeployed to other positions closer to the front. Using dash-cam footage posted to TikTok they were able to even identify specific armored divisions being moved up to the border. So I got a piece of current news (Russia is lying about its troop deployment), plus a piece of insight (in modern warfare citizens can learn about military movements without it being filtered through government entities).
5) This is not specific to the Economist, but the print format is so much nicer for me than digital. There's no temptation to check my email, or see what's on Hacker News (hah), or get drawn down some random digital rabbit hole.
Things like Private Eye and (even worse) The London Review of Books have this issue. It's like having a bad debt and it weighs you down when you know you should deal to it.
I used to feel vaguely guilty (in a "there-are-starving-children-in-Africa" kind of way) when I didn't read the entirety of the issue I had paid for, but eventually I realized it didn't make any sense.
Sometimes I read almost the whole thing, but there are weeks when I skip more than 80% of the contents because of no time. One issue I'll always read cover to cover, though, is the Christmas special.
I’ve been a subscriber for about fifteen years now. You triage the content. I rarely read more than half the magazine and that’s with spending >1hr on the subway every day.
I used to find the Economist great, but with the corrosiveness of everything this last bit, they seem to sneak agenda into articles now days in a way I feel like this whole post is trying to move away from. Maybe as a lost Libertarian who can't stand the control everyone's lives progressives I feel that has crept quite a bit into the Economist. It's funny it bothers me as I have reached a point where I feel Libertarianism just isn't compatible with the realities of the modern world as much as this child of hippies wishes it was and am looking for new understanding, but I always leave the Economist feeling like their American reporting on subjects I'm informed on is very manipulating which then makes me doubt their reporting on subjects I don't have enough context for deep personal understanding.
I haven't noticed this kind of bias in the US reporting, but my personal views skew moderate liberal so it might be hitting a personal blindspot.
The main stances that seem to go against coastal US media I've seen are:
1) Trans rights, particularly with youth transitioning. The Economist seems to have an article every week or two talking about health implications, controversy in female sports, or detransitioning.
2) Free speech. The Economist is very critical of any perceived censorship, and will frequently cover perceived excesses from the left in the US, particularly in higher education.
Generally I do not think the Economist does a great job of visually separating their editorial content from their news content. In many cases visual treatment of a column looks very close to a regular article, and the editorials at the front of each issue look (at a glance) indistinguishable from news stories. Each issue will also have a larger "briefing" on a prominent world issue that definitely blurs the lines between news and opinion. As a reader of many years, I've taken to skipping the editorial content, skimming the briefings, and taking the columns case-by-case. But I can imagine occasional readers having a different experience than I do.
Hmmm ... they are certainly right of center afaict. If they are quite liberal, what do you call the vast landscape to the left of them? Who is a centrist?
I agree. The Economist is like NPR for rich people and diplomats. Head out to the parlor with your cigar and jacket and enjoy it.
They are good in that they are informative and not subtle about the voice of the paper. But it gets a little boring to me if I read it for a few months.
> I have reached a point where I feel Libertarianism just isn't compatible with the realities of the modern world as much as this child of hippies wishes it was
How did you find them? Do you know who reads them or where they are popular? I came across them recently and was both impressed and puzzled that I'd never heard of them and never head anyone discuss them.
I haven't read that particular essay, but maybe submit it?
I have no idea what you are talking about. There is not a definitive / clear line between classical liberal and libertarian. The comment seems to be unnecessarily divisive and seeking for flame war.
I'm puzzled by that reaction. In my head at least, the distinction is pretty deep, and describing The Economist as "libertarian" in any sense would be clearly misplaced, other than to say it sometimes supports positions libertarians also agree with.
Historically, when The Economist was founded, libertarianism would have been associated with French anarchism. The core, consistent theme of libertarianism is that individual rights trump arbitrary interference by a collective. The various forms of anarchism are sort of natural "extreme" forms of libertarianism. Intellectually, libertarianism starts with a negative claim that except in extraordinary cases, the collective has no right to interfere with individuals. This remains true today. Core items (legalization of prostitution, drugs, elimination of many taxes) begin with the pretext that the collective has no right to regulate individual behavior in these domains.
Classical liberalism emerged in Britain (Locke, Smith, Mill, etc.). It has roots in a blend of English utilitarianism and enlightenment-era attempt to root the form of government in reason. "Rights" in classical liberalism are important, but they aren't necessarily more foundational than well-being. Anarchism is seem as trivially untenable (Hobbes' "nature red of tooth and claw"). Liberalism tries to identify a core set of functions (security, laws and their enforcement, public infrastructure) and a set of mechanisms (constitutions, elections, courts, etc.) to implement them, and has a very enlightenment-era emphasis on building institutions that are robust to "bad" actors. It does cleave towards a minimalist view of government, and does elevate rights like freedom of speech, but these are seen as intrinsically grey and are framed much more in terms of limiting the power of government institutions to ensure that they remain true to their mission/function.
I don't think that's flame bait, or super controversial.
This is all true, but in 20th century America the term libertarian got re-applied to a right-wing, small or no government, free-market approach. Now days most Americans are completely unaware of the French anarchist usage of the word. The origins of this are mixed, but I think it's safe to say the Hayek/Friedman wing has roots in classical liberalism, for example Locke's theory of private property.
If you read your own words carefully, you will agree with me: There is not a definitive / clear line between classical liberal and libertarian. The core values are the same. The historical context of French anarchism has nothing to do with the common use of the term libertarian in the modern (American) context.
Your own words "They represent the classical liberal position, which is not Libertarian, and never has been" make it seems like there is a clear cut difference between classical liberal and (modern) libertarian. Which is simply not true and unnecessarily divisive and seeking for flame war.
It is the mainstream view that classical liberal and libertarian are mostly equivalent in the modern context. The clear cut differentiation between classical liberal and libertarian is your own personal opinion. It is ok to have your own personal opinion, but it is exaggeration to state it as if it is the objective fact.
Your two positions are really not far apart from a third party perspective, but throwing in claims like "unnecessarily divisive and seeking for flame war" just seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
To be clear, I was not the person you were responding to, simply someone describing a relatively old set of philosophies.
We're talking about the classification of a 170-year-old journal that operates out of the UK. I don't think the suggestion that libertarianism (particularly American libertarianism) is largely irrelevant when discussing The Economist is surprising, or shocking, or even terribly controversial. The suggestion that it would start a flame war is particularly odd as far as the content of the suggestion was concerned, although the tone of the comment you were responding to was a little blustery.
I'm sure a lot of the staff of The Economist and a lot of libertarians hold, say, Milton Friedman in high regard.
The clear cut distinction between classical liberalism and libertarianism, however, is not merely my own personal opinion. Although the intellectual landscape is complex and variegated, there's a fundamental difference in how the two lines of thinking argue, and what they accept as first principals. Classical liberalism is an institutionalist view that derives policy decisions using a utilitarian set of values that balances rights against other measures of well-being and sustainability.
Libertarianism, conversely, uses a first-principals rights-based way of approaching decisions. Just as an example, here's the front page of the Libertarian Party in the United States:
"<The Libertarian Party> is the only political party that respects you as a unique and responsible individual. Our slogan is that we are 'The Party of Principle' because we stand firmly on our principles. Libertarians strongly oppose any government interference in your personal, family, and business decisions. Essentially, we believe all Americans should be free to live their lives and pursue their interests as they see fit as long as they do no harm to another."
This is pretty close to antithetical to classical liberalism. Classical liberalism explicitly seeks to suborn individual rights (which are not enshrined as intrinsically valuable) in a way that doesn't make us worse off than we started. The minimalism is classical liberalism is about outcomes, not about rights.
Obviously that's just a cheap banner page and not representative of libertarianism to everyone. I was surprised to find that it was closer to the original French meaning than I expected (which isn't important, but might be interesting).
Thank you, jknoepfler, this is essentially what I was thinking. The Economist is quite supportive of institutions and their value, in a way that American Libertarians are not. While both groups have important and useful things to say, and they sometimes share or advocate for the same positions, it is important to understand their differences too.
I subscribe to the Economist too and perceive their reporting as still being reasonably libertarian without venturing into tinfoil-hat territory, but being in the UK I guess I get both a different balance of articles and also have a different perception of libertarianism.
Particularly with NPR, you have to focus on particular shows and stations. There's no central editorial staff for the content that comes from their member stations. For example the Takeaway has quite different editorial standards than All Things Considered or Morning Edition.
There's a game that's fun to play to see how sometimes ideological and vacuous the Economist can be - try and swap out the key operative term of a piece with something absurd and see if the force of the argument changes or remains persuasive.
This is a while back, and an extreme example, but the pinnacle for me was the editorial (https://postimg.cc/hhkmfgN3) on the 9th of January 2012 where one could swap every reference it had on defending banks and financiers with references to slavery and slaveholders and the force of the argument would not change one jot. This was because it made absolutely no recourse to the wider context of impacts that the industry might have besides being of benefit to a city. It was just a whirr of rhetoric and really opened my eyes to the biases in play. The magazine's prestige has never quite recovered.
Fun aside, many other cases of journalistic bias are more about very selective reporting and emphasis, see for example the Bolivian election of 2020.
NPR has a subtle, but fairly clear centre left bias.
"There's no central editorial staff" - there's no need to have a central staff if you hire the same types of people.
Hear it from former senior NPR Exec. himself [1]
I'm not supporting this man's views at all, other than to point out he gives a fairly clear articulation into how 'bias' doesn't remotely need to have some kind of central authority and that it absolutely exists at NPR.
In fact, for someone who doesn't see the bias in something like NPR, learning to see the bias in an otherwise fairly respectable institution which does have fairly high standards and isn't so interest in flame-bait such as NPR - would be a worthy exercise.
'Culture' is probably the root of all bias in most places, not some 'central committee'. People who don't fit the mood are pushed said, those who have 'the correct opinions' are promoted. It's a perennial feature of human organisations you can see this in corporate culture as well.
I never said whether I agree or disagree that bias exists or where it was, bias exists in all human institutions. Part of modern, respectable journalism is the active task of acknowledging it, even.
What I asked were for some concrete examples. Whenever the discussion comes up on bias at NPR (in particular) people tend to hand wave around "subtle, but fairly clear centre left bias."
In my opinion there is a bias, which I would call "radical centrism" (the Sisyphean task of trying to recognize bias and attempt to curtail it), and I could point to few in the past week as a regular listener, but whenever I hear "NPR has a liberal bias" I can't get anyone to give me concrete examples. It's taken as fact.
My overwhelming interpretation of the national NPR broadcasts are two part :
Firstly, the majority of it are human interest stories. They do not devote a majority of their air time to politics. I don't see how the Moth, Fresh Air, This American Life, or the handful of local shows I listen to regularly about local news stories trends anywhere but whichever direction is compelling to a listener.
And secondly, an opinion that I don't like articulating on HN or anywhere that might ruffle feathers is that facts have a liberal bias. You can argue until the cows come up about the role of government in society, but the cardinal direction of "reality" on the political compass is <- that way.
>What worked well for me was getting a print subscription to the Economist. They definitely have a bias (particularly in their editorials), but it's mostly of the "free trade" variety, which is pretty easy to account for.
On political issues they're also pretty firmly middle-of-the-road beltway, which is its own little bubble.
It's partly because it delivers fairly objective analysis, but also because it puts heavy emphasis on how geography shapes how countries behave which is a blind spot of the economist/atlantic and the like.
I've done exactly the same thing. Grew tired mid pandemic Y1 of the constant drone and misinformation, just a continuation of how it had been going already.
Print and digital sub to the Economist and then "banned" myself from reading 24hr/live news sites.
Has been interesting to see how many real life conversations I've been in ~18m in where I've been (anecdotally) better informed, or able to add colour (the recent events in Ukraine are a good example) that friends have totally missed hooked up to the daily drip. Interested to see if you find this also?
I'm a huge fan of the more objective attitude of charts and figures, and a clear subjective opinion, often explicitly stated as "we think...".
I've definitely noticed having more background knowledge on major events. My wife still takes all her news digitally (mostly NYT), and I'm able to add a lot of color to her understanding of events when we talk through news of the day.
What's actually really surprising to me is how "not behind" my information normally is. I work my way through an issue over breakfasts and evenings in the course of the week, so my information is typically 2-9 days stale. It almost never matters.
I would suggest subscribing to the Sunday delivery of a physical newspaper you like - when they know they can't just quickly update and edit an article online it definitely seems like they are more conscientious with what they are printing.
> I'm a firm believer in quality over quantity when it comes to news
When it comes to news, I'm of the opinion that one should strive for diversity of opinion rather than quality. As you noted, all media has a bias so you should see what everyone's biases are. You will never get truth from any single media outfit so cast a wide net.
> What worked well for me was getting a print subscription to the Economist.
Why would you pay for something that has ads? It would be like paying facebook for a facebook account.
Print ads are a lot less obtrusive for me compared to digital ads. It's literally just a piece of paper that I don't have to look at. They don't have inline ads, or sponsored content, or autoplaying videos, or any of the conventional web shenanigans that try to hijack your attention. They certainly can't track me. I can't speak to the digital side of the economist, as I do not use it, but the print ads are mostly for dumb luxury goods that I can easily ignore.
People paid for newspapers for decades, and they've definitely always had ads in them. The advertisers subsidize my news reading, and in this case at least the trade-off seems acceptable.
Ads without javascript are great, but they barely pay anything as it’s apparently harder to identify fraud.
Everything is moving, animated, etc. Blink was deprecated for a reason, it’s annoying. So is auto play, stickies, overlays, copy/paste interference, etc. The dark patterns make it miserable.
I agree that diversity of opinion is important! I made https://www.nabu.news for that exact reason. If I'm reading a NYTimes article and curious about what other sources might say, I just click on the Nabu browser extension to see what, for example, Fox News is saying about the same thing. Find it helpful for getting out of my echo chamber.
It's why I stopped watching football, baseball, basketball, etc. Used to be a huge sports addict. Such an incredible waste of time looking back. Now, I only watch ad free highlights, if that.
But peak level of lunacy are the ad-ridden movie trailers on youtube. I can't believe people are actually watching ads in order to watch an ad...
Quick curiosity question. Why do you find The Economist’s coverage of Africa and the Middle East leaps and bounds better than others?
Here’s why I’m asking. I find The Economist’s coverage of the US a 7/10 and Turkey a 3/10. Having lived in both for roughly the same time, The Economist’s coverage of the US feels vastly superior to that of Turkey.
Yet, when I talk to my friends here, they say they read it for the international coverage. That always came to me as curious.
Honestly it is the difference between having any coverage and none at all.
If I just read stories from the front page of Google News I’d have no idea who Recep Erdogan was. I definitely wouldn’t have any idea of Turkeys current inflation woes or his constant firing of people who disagree with economic reality.
I've been doing the World News at 6:30PM with Brian Muir on whatever channel 7-1 is on my antenna, the NYTime's morning newsletter, and then I read the print New Yorker.
Then I come on HackerNews sometimes, but have dropped all social media and even my favorite news aggregator site Fark.com.
Mainly the big thing is just not looking at the news on my phone which can be an incredible time sink, and also not looking at comments for news related articles. Even here on HackerNews which I generally consider to be a "wheat, not chaff, comment section" can get pretty low grade on anything with a political slant unfortunately.
My opinion is, if I'm not going to do anything about it except yell at the people near me whether that's near me online, or near me in person, than there's no reason to get flustered about something.
If I'm going to start calling my reps again, and hitting the streets, then it's good to be informed so I can express my view points and understand what I'm fighting for. Otherwise, it's just negative energy. I'm not going to fix the entire world, and having negative emotions about every single negative thing that's happening in a brutal world is... just too much.
Business oriented publications work well for news because their biases tend to be of the “how can you make more money variety” as opposed to something catering to their reader/viewer’s cognitive biases (their readers want to make money, not fool themselves). Fooling yourself isn’t profitable, so why bother watching ideological conservative foxnews when time spent reading the conservative biz newspaper WSJ is much more productive?
I've personally been enjoying the "Quartz Daily Brief"[0] as my sole source of news for many years. My favorite thing about it, besides the fact that it's relatively unbiased, is that it's also pretty light on the actual news part. Today's brief only has five articles of news, which is less than a screenful. Following that is a "deep dive" into a non-polarizing topic (today it's about Cricket), then a few "fun", non-emotionally manipulating, articles (e.g., a new Coca Cola flavor).
Highly recommend it! And this is coming from someone who despises news, generally.
> Google News has gotten increasingly annoying though, forcing me harder toward the "personalized" results
oh brother, you aren't kidding. I want top news of the day, but all I get is a hundred clickbait versions of two or three things I clicked on once a couple weeks ago.
Just wanted to respond and second the comment on the Economist. I have been reading it for a year, and it has really given me a much broader and more balanced view of what is going on in the world (including in the US). I really like getting a perspective on US events, from outside the US.
It particularly nice because its a weekly with a subscription, so they don't have to be as click baitey with the titles and articles.
For reference, I also read Washington Post / New York Time (not great, but some baseline whats going on), The Atlantic, Jacobin, Wired (not very good anymore), and when I have time National Review.
Google News' most annoying thing now is they implemented infinite scroll....
FWIW I have a subscription to a major news paper + local to avoid the filter bubble. The major is a little conservative leaning and local a little liberal.
I also got frustrated with overly personalized results in Google News. I tried following a variety of sources on Twitter but that didn't work as well as I'd like either. I made my own topic-aligned news feed, and made a browser extension too (if you're reading an article online, it shows similar articles from other websites). Primarily a passion project, but I find it useful! Located here: https://www.nabu.news
I took a somewhat "quantified web" approach to identifying quality informational sources. That included a number of media and news publications. Basis was the Foreign Policy top 100 global thinkers list.
>Google News has gotten increasingly annoying though, forcing me harder toward the "personalized" results,
I noticed same. While there is some relevance to personalized news they may or may not reflect what I am looking for at this point in time.
Hence, I found that showing both (most noteworthy and most personal) actually helps me read the news better.
I have to say this again for the Economist fan girls here. It's still news, it may be more objective in tone and content than other publications, but it still influences negative thinking. Negative thinking is part of the job of global leaders or actual economists, so unless you're one, you're not doing yourself a favor
I think it is a good choice, but you should also read other journals. Even the wrong ones or especially the wrong ones. Only if you can detach yourself from the message of course, but it is valuable to see another angle. At least from time to time.
The Economist is extremely biased. It's only that their bias is so "natural" to you that you don't even question it or even recognise it, it just seems part of objective reality. There's the "globalised neoliberal capitalism" bias you mention, but also the "US foreign policy" bias for instance. It certainly prevents you from seeing many things in an accurate light.
There is no escaping it: you have to consume plural sources in order to be well-informed, otherwise you're subject to biases. Personally I stick to Reuters/AP + various newspapers.
Can you expand on the “US foreign policy bias”? For the last couple years I feel like most of the Economist’s opinion of US policy could be summed up as “bungling”.
E.g. they’re critical of the withdrawal from the TPP, the introduction of protectionist tariffs, the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the half-baked “Build Back Better World” counter to Belt and Road, pretty much all of recent immigration policy, etc.
I’m having a hard time thinking of a recent US foreign policy move they seemed in favor of. Maybe the tougher stance against China?
Or is the bias that they’re too critical of US foreign policy?
What worked well for me was getting a print subscription to the Economist. They definitely have a bias (particularly in their editorials), but it's mostly of the "free trade" variety, which is pretty easy to account for. On the other hand, their world coverage, particularly Africa and Middle East, is leaps and bounds better than anything you'll get online for free.
Plus the print medium is well suited for the wind-down time before bed, when I'm trying to disengage from screens. As a bonus, there's an exactly 0% chance you get click-baited into reading something inflammatory when you're consuming news on a piece of paper. Sadly they recently force-bundled print with digital, so you're stuck paying ~$80/year if you sign up during one of the frequent sales. $1.50/week is still well worth the cost of admission for me.