I'm over 65 and get my news from Substack, Social Media (as a whole) and research. I unsubscribed from the Times and the Post and don't watch any broadcast or cable news. I follow many excellent journalists and historians. MSM is a horror show, rife with disinformation, misleading headlines, and purposely posting stories while ignoring others.
I am in the same age group and Like you Michael I only get my news from extremely reputable Substack writers and independent news organizations like Courier and the Gander. Occasionally I will watch Lawrence O'Donnell on You Tube. MSM has really failed!!
Last night Rachel Maddow did an excellent deep dive on the dangerous rules the Georgia election board have been passing. Her show often does that kind of thing and I find it very worthwhile.
I have not cancelled my WaPo subscription yet but now I just scan the headlines to see if there is anything worthwhile. However the layout of their webpage (and app) is so filled with fluff I know I often miss the substantive articles they do publish. You get two or three top stories which are often style-over-substance campaign reports, then a section of “better living” articles, then a collection of random articles all before getting to the opinions section. It’s like a lifestyle magazine with some news articles and opinions sprinkled in — more fluff than substance. I always read Jennifer Rubin and Catherine Rampell is usually good but the WaPo got rid of some of their best opinion writer. Margaret Sullivan, a very experienced journalists and media critic and former NY Times ombudsman is now at the Guardian and also has a substack. The WaPo’s Plum Line writers Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman were also pushed/bought out. Sargent is at the New Republic and has a podcast, Waldman has a substack and publishes in various outlets. All of them were far better informed, fair and intelligent writers than the people they were replaced by, most of the Republican-leaning.
The thing I like most is that the WaPo, unlike the NYTimes, allows comments on most articles. However it can’t handle a lot of traffic even on normal days. It is very slow to load, your comments freeze in the middle of posting them, reload and often get lost. If you go to the site in the middle of the night that doesn’t happen. The app has the same problem. Sadly the WaPo is getting very bush-league.
Did you see that Rich Lowry wrote an article, published in the Times, that "Trump can win on character". We're talking about one of the worst human beings on the planet. And the Times published it.
I was just going to mention that exact column. I wanted to write a comment in the NYT excoriating Rich Lowry for his craven and disgusting stupidity and frankly, just call him a fucking moron, but it probably wouldn't have been accepted. I keep coming and going from the NYT because they print so many opinion pieces that have no basis in reality and tip-toe around their headlines the way Mark Jacob has often pointed out, but there are some fact-based columnists of integrity that I appreciate and the publication does some good journalism outside of the political sphere. I'm only giving them $4 a month right now, but not sure if being a subscriber and having a small voice is better, or is it better to not add to their subscriber tally?
I think it’s better to unsubscribe. I did so in 2016 over “but her emails.” It’s important to remember the NYT has been corrupt for decades. Remember the breathless Whitewater and Starr investigation coverage? And Judith Miller’s pimping of the Iraq War? They’ve consistently enabled bad faith RW attacks going back to at least the 1990’s.
I cancelled my subscription when The NY Times had so many negative articles about Biden and his debate performance . There were few negative articles about Trump. It wasn’t balanced. Now I read many substack newsletters plus my local newspaper (online).
I understand that opinion columns are just that: opinions. But increasingly over the last decade or so, I've seen too many "opinion" columns based on flat-out falsehoods. That should be disallowed. Also Rich Lowry is the guy who said in 2008 after the vice presidential debate that he saw "little starbursts" dancing around his living room when Sarah Palin winked and he felt like she was winking at him personally. I don't take seriously a guy who conflates politics with his sexual fantasies.
For those of you with NY Times delivery, I just want to mention that there is no limit to how many sequential six month "vacation holds" you can have, during which online access continues but billing does not. presently at 8 years. I "supported journalism" for a long time but too much is too much.
Same dilemma. Four bucks is a bargain. But the editorial board's decisions and repeated efforts to normalize the horrors and weirdness on the right make me want to pull the ripcord about every three days.
I am with you: Over 65, unsubscribed from NYT and WaPo, and ignoring broadcast media as well. I get my news from trusted individual journalists, and others who have stepped into the space that used to owned by then-trusted mainstream media!
Even AP has fallen into the performative neutrality trap. Yesterday they printed Trump's clapback responses to Harris' DNC acceptance speech without flagging that his comments were false. They wrote that he'd promised not to impose a nationwide abortion ban and waited several paragraphs to point out his comments bragging about Dobbs. Then they quoted his disagreement with Project 2025 without identifying its pro-Trump authors and origins. With "journalism" like this, who needs Fox?
I've noticed this trend of a lot of the so-called "fact checkers" claiming that Democrats aren't being honest to call out Trump for a position he took because on another occasion he took other positions (he's changed his claimed position on abortion a dozen times.) But if he ever took that position publicly, Democrats aren't being dishonest; it's the person who keeps changing his position for no apparent reason (well, maybe because his previous one was toxic!) who is.
What I just love is that WaPo will ask dump what he currently "thinks" about a policy issue!! They racked him up at about 40,000 lies during his "administration"!
Every thing he says should be prefaced with Lying Liar Who Lies.
I get as allergic as you surely do when people refer to “the media” as a single entity with one set of motivations, but it’s fair to speculate on how many times the people who are being “duped” have to be “duped” before one wonders whether they’re actually being duped.
“We don’t want to act as press agents for the Democrats,” say an awful lot of people who clearly never spend a moment wondering whether they’re acting as press agents for the Republicans.
And then there are those who just clearly pine to have Trump back. And like him, they already know they’re irrelevant; they’re just flapping their arms and screaming in the hopes that people won’t notice for a little longer.
Finally, I can’t %^*+ing stand it when reporters complain about working conditions. Most importantly, there are journalists covering actual wars out there; more personally, I covered concerts for years in venues where the presence of water in the water cooler was considered lush.
That "press agents for the Democrats" line makes me think of the League of Women Voters. The League is a non-partisan organization that promotes participation in the democratic process: access to the ballot, ease of voting, fair redistricting, reducing the influence of money in politics, etc. Those goals should all be NON-partisan, but for the last eight years (at least!) they've been part of one party's platform but actively discouraged by the other party. So the League's principles are also the principles of the Democratic Party but are nowhere to be seen on the Republican side. This does not make the League a partisan organization. It does make the GOP an anti-democratic political party. Short version for the press people: When one party actively works to undermine the press and the other party supports the 1st Amendment, supporting press freedom doesn't make you a Democrat.
Take a look at the comments section of the 2 biggest legacy media outlets, WaPo and NYTimes, the vast majority are calling out the hypocrisy, double standards and downright fist on the scale for tangerine tito. Their readers are getting more and more frustrated with the click bait headlines, both side-ism, and sexism of their journalists.
Frankly, they are treating all of us as if we just fell off the wagon. Insulting the intelligence of the reader is a piss poor strategy to maintain and grow their business.
IMHO quality journalism is only coming from non-traditional sources. Whatever MSM is doing with their mandatory both sides BS, it is not quality journalism. Most of MSM broadcast "news" is unwatchable and much of print "news" from papers of record (NYT, WP) is unreadable. I don't expect them to change. They inhabit an alternate mediaverse that serves their purposes, not ours. But it never hurts to call them out.
Agree wholeheartedly. WaPo and NY Times are the worst MSM offenders. They used to have real investigative journalists. Now, except for a few rare opinion reporters, their editorial boards and news reporters cover extreme right-wing politicians as if they are normal, fact-based, pro-democracy adherents. They are not! We have a fascist movement in this nation that has co-opted millions of people, and MSM treats such trends as just another conservative faction. I trust Substack writers for true information, such as Heather Cox Richardson, who back up stories with references. My subscriptions to WaPo, NY Times, the New Yorker, and Atlantic expire soon, and I am not renewing them. They have too many hacks, or enablers for billionaire owners, to provide decent coverage we need to be informed.
Wouldn't it be great to see a breakout of NY Times "news subscribers", versus their "lifestyle" Wordle and Recipes ones, to assess their true journalistic power?
When the public starts asking about the billionaires who run most corporate media parent companies, they have lost their objectivity and legitimacy. Once you’ve seen the meme that shows that those billionaires donate millions of dollars to the Trump campaign, you can’t unsee it and their stilted coverage makes more sense. We know that corporate media prioritizes protecting their profits and their wealth over protecting democracy and the vital role of the 4th estate.
Timely analysis, Mark. NYT and Washington Post will never be the standalone news sources they once were, and not when honesty is in such short supply at both of those corporate monstrosities.
I think the Harris-Walz campaign is doing dandy without being bothered by people who are going to ask, “Trump said this about you, what is your response?” I hope Harris and Walz’s responses continue to be buzz off.
The potential problem is that if the MSM get sufficiently petulant about the Harris team ignoring them, giving “creators”privileged treatment, putting off their requests/demands for new conferences, etc., they will try and possibly succeed in doing damage to Harris’s campaign as they did, seemingly intentionally, to Clinton’s eight years ago. Some gestures in their direction from the campaign are appropriate before things get out of hand. The campaign should be the adults in the room.
I don't watch or listen to the racist legacy media. Stop watching local news years ago. Don't watch CNN, MSNBC, CBS or ant other mainstream news outlet. I get my news from reliable fact checking informed youtube content creators and Roland Martin Unfiltered.
I'm over 65 and get my news from Substack, Social Media (as a whole) and research. I unsubscribed from the Times and the Post and don't watch any broadcast or cable news. I follow many excellent journalists and historians. MSM is a horror show, rife with disinformation, misleading headlines, and purposely posting stories while ignoring others.
I am in the same age group and Like you Michael I only get my news from extremely reputable Substack writers and independent news organizations like Courier and the Gander. Occasionally I will watch Lawrence O'Donnell on You Tube. MSM has really failed!!
Last night Rachel Maddow did an excellent deep dive on the dangerous rules the Georgia election board have been passing. Her show often does that kind of thing and I find it very worthwhile.
I have not cancelled my WaPo subscription yet but now I just scan the headlines to see if there is anything worthwhile. However the layout of their webpage (and app) is so filled with fluff I know I often miss the substantive articles they do publish. You get two or three top stories which are often style-over-substance campaign reports, then a section of “better living” articles, then a collection of random articles all before getting to the opinions section. It’s like a lifestyle magazine with some news articles and opinions sprinkled in — more fluff than substance. I always read Jennifer Rubin and Catherine Rampell is usually good but the WaPo got rid of some of their best opinion writer. Margaret Sullivan, a very experienced journalists and media critic and former NY Times ombudsman is now at the Guardian and also has a substack. The WaPo’s Plum Line writers Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman were also pushed/bought out. Sargent is at the New Republic and has a podcast, Waldman has a substack and publishes in various outlets. All of them were far better informed, fair and intelligent writers than the people they were replaced by, most of the Republican-leaning.
The thing I like most is that the WaPo, unlike the NYTimes, allows comments on most articles. However it can’t handle a lot of traffic even on normal days. It is very slow to load, your comments freeze in the middle of posting them, reload and often get lost. If you go to the site in the middle of the night that doesn’t happen. The app has the same problem. Sadly the WaPo is getting very bush-league.
Did you see that Rich Lowry wrote an article, published in the Times, that "Trump can win on character". We're talking about one of the worst human beings on the planet. And the Times published it.
I was just going to mention that exact column. I wanted to write a comment in the NYT excoriating Rich Lowry for his craven and disgusting stupidity and frankly, just call him a fucking moron, but it probably wouldn't have been accepted. I keep coming and going from the NYT because they print so many opinion pieces that have no basis in reality and tip-toe around their headlines the way Mark Jacob has often pointed out, but there are some fact-based columnists of integrity that I appreciate and the publication does some good journalism outside of the political sphere. I'm only giving them $4 a month right now, but not sure if being a subscriber and having a small voice is better, or is it better to not add to their subscriber tally?
I think it’s better to unsubscribe. I did so in 2016 over “but her emails.” It’s important to remember the NYT has been corrupt for decades. Remember the breathless Whitewater and Starr investigation coverage? And Judith Miller’s pimping of the Iraq War? They’ve consistently enabled bad faith RW attacks going back to at least the 1990’s.
I cancelled my subscription when The NY Times had so many negative articles about Biden and his debate performance . There were few negative articles about Trump. It wasn’t balanced. Now I read many substack newsletters plus my local newspaper (online).
I understand that opinion columns are just that: opinions. But increasingly over the last decade or so, I've seen too many "opinion" columns based on flat-out falsehoods. That should be disallowed. Also Rich Lowry is the guy who said in 2008 after the vice presidential debate that he saw "little starbursts" dancing around his living room when Sarah Palin winked and he felt like she was winking at him personally. I don't take seriously a guy who conflates politics with his sexual fantasies.
For those of you with NY Times delivery, I just want to mention that there is no limit to how many sequential six month "vacation holds" you can have, during which online access continues but billing does not. presently at 8 years. I "supported journalism" for a long time but too much is too much.
Same dilemma. Four bucks is a bargain. But the editorial board's decisions and repeated efforts to normalize the horrors and weirdness on the right make me want to pull the ripcord about every three days.
One can unsubscribe along with a detailed letter ad to why. The more if those, thd sooner they'll get the message.
Same age and doing the same things.
I'm with ya.
I’m 78 and do the same!
Same here!
I am with you: Over 65, unsubscribed from NYT and WaPo, and ignoring broadcast media as well. I get my news from trusted individual journalists, and others who have stepped into the space that used to owned by then-trusted mainstream media!
Even AP has fallen into the performative neutrality trap. Yesterday they printed Trump's clapback responses to Harris' DNC acceptance speech without flagging that his comments were false. They wrote that he'd promised not to impose a nationwide abortion ban and waited several paragraphs to point out his comments bragging about Dobbs. Then they quoted his disagreement with Project 2025 without identifying its pro-Trump authors and origins. With "journalism" like this, who needs Fox?
I've noticed this trend of a lot of the so-called "fact checkers" claiming that Democrats aren't being honest to call out Trump for a position he took because on another occasion he took other positions (he's changed his claimed position on abortion a dozen times.) But if he ever took that position publicly, Democrats aren't being dishonest; it's the person who keeps changing his position for no apparent reason (well, maybe because his previous one was toxic!) who is.
What I just love is that WaPo will ask dump what he currently "thinks" about a policy issue!! They racked him up at about 40,000 lies during his "administration"!
Every thing he says should be prefaced with Lying Liar Who Lies.
"Thinks"? That's a futile question!
I get as allergic as you surely do when people refer to “the media” as a single entity with one set of motivations, but it’s fair to speculate on how many times the people who are being “duped” have to be “duped” before one wonders whether they’re actually being duped.
“We don’t want to act as press agents for the Democrats,” say an awful lot of people who clearly never spend a moment wondering whether they’re acting as press agents for the Republicans.
And then there are those who just clearly pine to have Trump back. And like him, they already know they’re irrelevant; they’re just flapping their arms and screaming in the hopes that people won’t notice for a little longer.
Finally, I can’t %^*+ing stand it when reporters complain about working conditions. Most importantly, there are journalists covering actual wars out there; more personally, I covered concerts for years in venues where the presence of water in the water cooler was considered lush.
That "press agents for the Democrats" line makes me think of the League of Women Voters. The League is a non-partisan organization that promotes participation in the democratic process: access to the ballot, ease of voting, fair redistricting, reducing the influence of money in politics, etc. Those goals should all be NON-partisan, but for the last eight years (at least!) they've been part of one party's platform but actively discouraged by the other party. So the League's principles are also the principles of the Democratic Party but are nowhere to be seen on the Republican side. This does not make the League a partisan organization. It does make the GOP an anti-democratic political party. Short version for the press people: When one party actively works to undermine the press and the other party supports the 1st Amendment, supporting press freedom doesn't make you a Democrat.
Take a look at the comments section of the 2 biggest legacy media outlets, WaPo and NYTimes, the vast majority are calling out the hypocrisy, double standards and downright fist on the scale for tangerine tito. Their readers are getting more and more frustrated with the click bait headlines, both side-ism, and sexism of their journalists.
Frankly, they are treating all of us as if we just fell off the wagon. Insulting the intelligence of the reader is a piss poor strategy to maintain and grow their business.
IMHO quality journalism is only coming from non-traditional sources. Whatever MSM is doing with their mandatory both sides BS, it is not quality journalism. Most of MSM broadcast "news" is unwatchable and much of print "news" from papers of record (NYT, WP) is unreadable. I don't expect them to change. They inhabit an alternate mediaverse that serves their purposes, not ours. But it never hurts to call them out.
Although I have long distrusted mass media, the lows that most of it has sunk to is nauseating.
“Triumph of the earning curve over the learning curve”. DAYYYUMM.
Agree wholeheartedly. WaPo and NY Times are the worst MSM offenders. They used to have real investigative journalists. Now, except for a few rare opinion reporters, their editorial boards and news reporters cover extreme right-wing politicians as if they are normal, fact-based, pro-democracy adherents. They are not! We have a fascist movement in this nation that has co-opted millions of people, and MSM treats such trends as just another conservative faction. I trust Substack writers for true information, such as Heather Cox Richardson, who back up stories with references. My subscriptions to WaPo, NY Times, the New Yorker, and Atlantic expire soon, and I am not renewing them. They have too many hacks, or enablers for billionaire owners, to provide decent coverage we need to be informed.
Wouldn't it be great to see a breakout of NY Times "news subscribers", versus their "lifestyle" Wordle and Recipes ones, to assess their true journalistic power?
When the public starts asking about the billionaires who run most corporate media parent companies, they have lost their objectivity and legitimacy. Once you’ve seen the meme that shows that those billionaires donate millions of dollars to the Trump campaign, you can’t unsee it and their stilted coverage makes more sense. We know that corporate media prioritizes protecting their profits and their wealth over protecting democracy and the vital role of the 4th estate.
Timely analysis, Mark. NYT and Washington Post will never be the standalone news sources they once were, and not when honesty is in such short supply at both of those corporate monstrosities.
I think the Harris-Walz campaign is doing dandy without being bothered by people who are going to ask, “Trump said this about you, what is your response?” I hope Harris and Walz’s responses continue to be buzz off.
Legacy media needs to ask hard questions of both sides in a presidential race. They don't.
Awesome! ❤️❤️❤️❤️👏👏👏👏👏
The potential problem is that if the MSM get sufficiently petulant about the Harris team ignoring them, giving “creators”privileged treatment, putting off their requests/demands for new conferences, etc., they will try and possibly succeed in doing damage to Harris’s campaign as they did, seemingly intentionally, to Clinton’s eight years ago. Some gestures in their direction from the campaign are appropriate before things get out of hand. The campaign should be the adults in the room.
Being the only adult in a room full of hissy fit cry babies doesn’t seem worthwhile.
I don't watch or listen to the racist legacy media. Stop watching local news years ago. Don't watch CNN, MSNBC, CBS or ant other mainstream news outlet. I get my news from reliable fact checking informed youtube content creators and Roland Martin Unfiltered.