thanks, Mark, that's how I split my cancellation—with real sadness I left the Post, kept the Times. tried to justify taking the cheap deal Post offered, rationalizing that at least I wouldn't be paying much for the many stories I'd still love to read (still getting teasers throughout the day). but like weighing whether to leave Twitter a year ago, I know remaining a subscriber to the Post wouldn't be right.
hope you saw Alexandra Petri's fabulous Atlantic piece, a fictional first-person report from the president on how he got into the Epstein files. highly recommended.
I'm pretty much where you are, although for me, the final straw that led me to cancel my WaPo subscription was Bezos's congratulatory tweet to Trump on Election Night.
I still agonize about my NYT subscription. They do a lot of good stuff, but their bothsiderism concerning Trump, and the whole GOP, often really feels like something that ought to be punished, if only in a token way.
The best writers and reporters have either left or leaving, and subscribers — including this one — have followed. Bezos is a grotesque parody of a media owner, and is taking WaPo down a dark road.
From today’s Times: “Trump’s Claims on Obama are Overblown, Reports Show”. They are such cowards they can’t say Trump is a wannabe autocrat making up bullshit. Do not give NYT your money or clicks.
In total agreement. I canceled my NY Times subscription years ago. I read a variety of Substacks, including right-leaning like the Bulwark and Charlie Sykes. As long as the truth is told, whether I agree with the politics or not, I'm good.
Exactly the same reasoning I made to cancel my wapo subscription after 25 loyal years …I was all in I got home delivery too ….cost me $900-1000/ year but was happy with the wide variety of thought in the articles, writers etc ….& then it stopped when the Murdoch tabloid Brit’s rolled in to mgmt — and down hill it went hard Bothsideism crap — that was it - bezo calling the shot on withholding a editorial support for Harris …I was done … best decision I’ve made
I sub to bulwark tough I’m pretty liberal — but the team there is very good; love TNR, The Nation and still have my NYT that can still anger me
But WAPO went full maga protection racket — not for me
I canceled WaPo, NYT, LA Times. I do miss The NYT the most. The fact that NYT positioned itself as "not responsible for saving democracy" as well as the CONSTANT "Biden’s old" and their blatant sanewashing of tRump regime actions and trump's obvious decline, physical and mental!
The NY Times GAVE us Trump; they steered the "her emails" ship. They blew the story that dominated the entire election to epic proportions, as documented by the Columbia Journalism Review: more front-page email stories in the six days before the election than about all policies issues combined in the previous 69 days. Also five times more stories about the above-board Clinton Foundation, insinuating wrongdoing but admitting they couldn't identify any, than about the corrupt, self-dealing Trump Foundation which had its charter pulled for violating its terms.
I push back on Trump's use of the term "fake news" by saying it's not "fake news" — it's spun news. The facts in outlets like the NYT are correct, but it's spun in what they choose to cover and how they place it. I did a two-year study of bias in my local daily paper back in 2009-2011, and found it chiefly occurred in how they wrote headlines, where they placed stories in the paper and how much coverage they gave to something, not in wrong facts. That's the NYT playbook. I recall a story about some pretty damning accusations against the Trump spawn placed on page 16 (and a one-and-done story) when you know it would've been front page over and over if it involved Hunter Biden (as it was!)
As for the Washington Post, which I once subscribed to as an alternative to The NY Times doing things like fawning over Ivanka after Trump made her a "senior advisor," by canceling you're missing their hard-hitting coverage of "gut health" and "top protein myths." But yeah, it'd be cheaper just to buy a copy of "Today's Health" magazine. In 4-5 years the paper has descended into worthlessness although their strong rightwing drift predated this current administration.
Oh look. I just got my WaPo newsletter and am so excited to read their coverage of "10 science-based ways to prevent heart disease," written by an actual cardiologist, not RFK Jr. I guess they'll invite him to write a rebuttal tomorrow! And there's a story on "the right and wrong ways to pee," with a headline on Trump's tariffs two stories beneath it (less important). They're rapidly becoming satire.
I cancelled the WaPost and the NY Times the day after the 2024 election. I was so tired of the Trump sane washing. I have since renewed the subscription to the Times for the very reasons you stated. However, the WaPost is likewise dead to me.
Does no one else remember that the NYT put Trump in office by driving the national "her emails" coverage? Or their adoring hagiographies of Trump figures such as Hope Hicks and Ivanka? Or their excuses for running Tom Cotton's "fascism is good" editorial? They are as responsible as any media source for Trump while taking a lofty "we're impartial" attitude.
PBS/NPR (they will survive, private donations are responding) & the Fediverse (no billionaires, no algorithms, no ads, open source, etc). MSM fooked us, so fook ‘em.
What makes me nuts, among the many outrages, is how the NYT and WaPo translate Trump's incoherent flabgasts into normal human speech. That goes beyond sanewashing, IMO. Perhaps if the less rabid supporters understood his inability to form a coherent sentence, they might (maybe, hopefully, possibly) begin to question his fitness to lead (sic). We cancelled WaPo after the Anne Telnaes massacre. I hung on for so long only because of Alexandra Petri and Dana Milbank. Maybe they'll leave the dark side and come to Substack! Until then, Dave Barry must suffice. We still get the NYT but I'll often abandon an article once the pander-to-info ratio skews too far to the ridiculous.
Yes! I was shocked after I started making an effort to find transcripts of Trump's speeches and press conferences. (As noted elsewhere, I dumped the NY Times after the 2016 election and stopped renewing the Post after its incessant, anonymously sourced Biden-bashing in the spring of 2024. My sub ran out earlier this year and I don't miss it.)
Alexandra Petri has left the Post and is now writing for the Atlantic! And she’s bitterly sharp.I'm so glad to see her again. I do miss the Petri fan commentary community and the weekly reader Q&A she did at the Post. Atlantic doesn’t let readers interact with authors except via strictly curated old-fashioned letters/email. I follow her on Bluesky and let her know I love her articles that way.
I'm old. Grew up with Cronkite, Huntley/Brinkley, etc. I was turned on to the NYTS in graduate school. I find them somewhat pathetic in their attempts to be both sides. I look at WaPo and know that Katherine Graham and Ben Bradley are spinning in their graves over what it's become. But, I choose the Times over WaPo.
Interesting article and comments. For me, it's too late for the NY Times. I canceled both the NY Times and the Washington Post at different times, when I no longer needed to hear anything else they had to say. Right now, and I invite feedback on this, I read The Guardian and Huffington Post, and I'm thinking about adding NPR. I can't go back to those two, though, the NY Times or Washington Post. Those ships have sailed for me.
I appreciate the breakdown identifying the tendencies of various journalistic/media sources as a guide to pursuing those with constant veracity.
It took me years finding journalists I felt I had learned to trust.
I admit I still submit my opinions also to publications that are questionable only in the hope that maybe one person at least will pay attention.
There is no way I can really know if I’m helping toward my goal of communicating the importance of saving our Democracy. I know I must try to help in some way -other than $- therefore committing time reading and responding instead.
There are several journalist I initially “self-certified” (😊) as trustworthy on Twitter who left Twitter and migrated to Threads, Substack and BlueSky so, I followed.
Again I thank all of you dedicated to Truth and our Democracy for all you are attempting.
I dumped the NY Times after the 2016 election but hung in with WaPo till my sub ran out earlier this year. I do take your point about billionaire ownership, and Bozo has become more heavy-handed in the last year or so -- if I hadn't already been letting my sub run out, I would have cancelled after his contribution to Trump II's inauguration. But the NYT doesn't have that excuse. Its incessant "but her emails" drumbeat in 2016 helped Trump get elected the first time. If I'd ever lived in NYC, I might be more forgiving but I haven't so I'm not.
I'm doing fine with the Guardian (UK and US editions), the Boston Globe (as long as they keep offering cheap deals -- I'm in MA), ProPublica, and a slew of Substacks, several of them produced by journalists (esp. the Contrarian).
I agree there’s lots to despair about WaPo (ex: dumb-dumb 1950’s-style women’s magazine articles that talk down to EVERYONE, often taking up the entire third column of the front page), and as it’s my hometown newspaper, I despair plenty. However, I’m still a subscriber, because I noticed this trend—sometimes as many as five factual and well-written negative articles about the trump administration daily. There are still good reporters on staff at WaPo, doing their job, and apparently winning the battle of getting valuable content included in the paper.
thanks, Mark, that's how I split my cancellation—with real sadness I left the Post, kept the Times. tried to justify taking the cheap deal Post offered, rationalizing that at least I wouldn't be paying much for the many stories I'd still love to read (still getting teasers throughout the day). but like weighing whether to leave Twitter a year ago, I know remaining a subscriber to the Post wouldn't be right.
hope you saw Alexandra Petri's fabulous Atlantic piece, a fictional first-person report from the president on how he got into the Epstein files. highly recommended.
I'm pretty much where you are, although for me, the final straw that led me to cancel my WaPo subscription was Bezos's congratulatory tweet to Trump on Election Night.
I still agonize about my NYT subscription. They do a lot of good stuff, but their bothsiderism concerning Trump, and the whole GOP, often really feels like something that ought to be punished, if only in a token way.
The best writers and reporters have either left or leaving, and subscribers — including this one — have followed. Bezos is a grotesque parody of a media owner, and is taking WaPo down a dark road.
From today’s Times: “Trump’s Claims on Obama are Overblown, Reports Show”. They are such cowards they can’t say Trump is a wannabe autocrat making up bullshit. Do not give NYT your money or clicks.
In total agreement. I canceled my NY Times subscription years ago. I read a variety of Substacks, including right-leaning like the Bulwark and Charlie Sykes. As long as the truth is told, whether I agree with the politics or not, I'm good.
Same here. As long as they’re anti-autocracy they’re OK with me. For now, anyway.
Exactly the same reasoning I made to cancel my wapo subscription after 25 loyal years …I was all in I got home delivery too ….cost me $900-1000/ year but was happy with the wide variety of thought in the articles, writers etc ….& then it stopped when the Murdoch tabloid Brit’s rolled in to mgmt — and down hill it went hard Bothsideism crap — that was it - bezo calling the shot on withholding a editorial support for Harris …I was done … best decision I’ve made
I sub to bulwark tough I’m pretty liberal — but the team there is very good; love TNR, The Nation and still have my NYT that can still anger me
But WAPO went full maga protection racket — not for me
I canceled WaPo, NYT, LA Times. I do miss The NYT the most. The fact that NYT positioned itself as "not responsible for saving democracy" as well as the CONSTANT "Biden’s old" and their blatant sanewashing of tRump regime actions and trump's obvious decline, physical and mental!
The NY Times GAVE us Trump; they steered the "her emails" ship. They blew the story that dominated the entire election to epic proportions, as documented by the Columbia Journalism Review: more front-page email stories in the six days before the election than about all policies issues combined in the previous 69 days. Also five times more stories about the above-board Clinton Foundation, insinuating wrongdoing but admitting they couldn't identify any, than about the corrupt, self-dealing Trump Foundation which had its charter pulled for violating its terms.
I push back on Trump's use of the term "fake news" by saying it's not "fake news" — it's spun news. The facts in outlets like the NYT are correct, but it's spun in what they choose to cover and how they place it. I did a two-year study of bias in my local daily paper back in 2009-2011, and found it chiefly occurred in how they wrote headlines, where they placed stories in the paper and how much coverage they gave to something, not in wrong facts. That's the NYT playbook. I recall a story about some pretty damning accusations against the Trump spawn placed on page 16 (and a one-and-done story) when you know it would've been front page over and over if it involved Hunter Biden (as it was!)
As for the Washington Post, which I once subscribed to as an alternative to The NY Times doing things like fawning over Ivanka after Trump made her a "senior advisor," by canceling you're missing their hard-hitting coverage of "gut health" and "top protein myths." But yeah, it'd be cheaper just to buy a copy of "Today's Health" magazine. In 4-5 years the paper has descended into worthlessness although their strong rightwing drift predated this current administration.
Oh look. I just got my WaPo newsletter and am so excited to read their coverage of "10 science-based ways to prevent heart disease," written by an actual cardiologist, not RFK Jr. I guess they'll invite him to write a rebuttal tomorrow! And there's a story on "the right and wrong ways to pee," with a headline on Trump's tariffs two stories beneath it (less important). They're rapidly becoming satire.
I cancelled the WaPost and the NY Times the day after the 2024 election. I was so tired of the Trump sane washing. I have since renewed the subscription to the Times for the very reasons you stated. However, the WaPost is likewise dead to me.
Does no one else remember that the NYT put Trump in office by driving the national "her emails" coverage? Or their adoring hagiographies of Trump figures such as Hope Hicks and Ivanka? Or their excuses for running Tom Cotton's "fascism is good" editorial? They are as responsible as any media source for Trump while taking a lofty "we're impartial" attitude.
PBS/NPR (they will survive, private donations are responding) & the Fediverse (no billionaires, no algorithms, no ads, open source, etc). MSM fooked us, so fook ‘em.
Exactly the same decisions I’ve come to!
What makes me nuts, among the many outrages, is how the NYT and WaPo translate Trump's incoherent flabgasts into normal human speech. That goes beyond sanewashing, IMO. Perhaps if the less rabid supporters understood his inability to form a coherent sentence, they might (maybe, hopefully, possibly) begin to question his fitness to lead (sic). We cancelled WaPo after the Anne Telnaes massacre. I hung on for so long only because of Alexandra Petri and Dana Milbank. Maybe they'll leave the dark side and come to Substack! Until then, Dave Barry must suffice. We still get the NYT but I'll often abandon an article once the pander-to-info ratio skews too far to the ridiculous.
Yes! I was shocked after I started making an effort to find transcripts of Trump's speeches and press conferences. (As noted elsewhere, I dumped the NY Times after the 2016 election and stopped renewing the Post after its incessant, anonymously sourced Biden-bashing in the spring of 2024. My sub ran out earlier this year and I don't miss it.)
Alexandra Petri has left the Post and is now writing for the Atlantic! And she’s bitterly sharp.I'm so glad to see her again. I do miss the Petri fan commentary community and the weekly reader Q&A she did at the Post. Atlantic doesn’t let readers interact with authors except via strictly curated old-fashioned letters/email. I follow her on Bluesky and let her know I love her articles that way.
I'm old. Grew up with Cronkite, Huntley/Brinkley, etc. I was turned on to the NYTS in graduate school. I find them somewhat pathetic in their attempts to be both sides. I look at WaPo and know that Katherine Graham and Ben Bradley are spinning in their graves over what it's become. But, I choose the Times over WaPo.
Interesting article and comments. For me, it's too late for the NY Times. I canceled both the NY Times and the Washington Post at different times, when I no longer needed to hear anything else they had to say. Right now, and I invite feedback on this, I read The Guardian and Huffington Post, and I'm thinking about adding NPR. I can't go back to those two, though, the NY Times or Washington Post. Those ships have sailed for me.
Mark
I appreciate the breakdown identifying the tendencies of various journalistic/media sources as a guide to pursuing those with constant veracity.
It took me years finding journalists I felt I had learned to trust.
I admit I still submit my opinions also to publications that are questionable only in the hope that maybe one person at least will pay attention.
There is no way I can really know if I’m helping toward my goal of communicating the importance of saving our Democracy. I know I must try to help in some way -other than $- therefore committing time reading and responding instead.
There are several journalist I initially “self-certified” (😊) as trustworthy on Twitter who left Twitter and migrated to Threads, Substack and BlueSky so, I followed.
Again I thank all of you dedicated to Truth and our Democracy for all you are attempting.
Bless you all
💙💙🇺🇸💙😢
Back at ya, Alexia.
How kind🌻
I dumped the NY Times after the 2016 election but hung in with WaPo till my sub ran out earlier this year. I do take your point about billionaire ownership, and Bozo has become more heavy-handed in the last year or so -- if I hadn't already been letting my sub run out, I would have cancelled after his contribution to Trump II's inauguration. But the NYT doesn't have that excuse. Its incessant "but her emails" drumbeat in 2016 helped Trump get elected the first time. If I'd ever lived in NYC, I might be more forgiving but I haven't so I'm not.
I'm doing fine with the Guardian (UK and US editions), the Boston Globe (as long as they keep offering cheap deals -- I'm in MA), ProPublica, and a slew of Substacks, several of them produced by journalists (esp. the Contrarian).
I agree there’s lots to despair about WaPo (ex: dumb-dumb 1950’s-style women’s magazine articles that talk down to EVERYONE, often taking up the entire third column of the front page), and as it’s my hometown newspaper, I despair plenty. However, I’m still a subscriber, because I noticed this trend—sometimes as many as five factual and well-written negative articles about the trump administration daily. There are still good reporters on staff at WaPo, doing their job, and apparently winning the battle of getting valuable content included in the paper.