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by johnNumen 1573 days ago
I used to read the Economist and likewise gave it up in 2021 due to the creeping politicisation and simplification of their coverage. I think this is representative of a larger illness that is pervading Western journalism, an ideological illness that has journalists viewing themselves as school marms of the hoi polloi rather than reporters and analysts of fact.

My suggestion is to peruse smart political magazines from a diversity of sources. Four I can recommend for this purpose are

https://jacobinmag.com ("democratic socialist" a la Sanders. Critical of the Democrats from the left. Frequently critiques establishment policies on numerous issues, occasionally including foreign policy.)

https://www.tabletmag.com (Jewish conservative magazine. A useful balance to my other selections in that it is Zionist.)

https://www.theamericanconservative.com (This magazine is one of the few smart conservative publications. It is critical of Republican interventionist foreign policy and free trade ideology. It is very culturally conservative.)

https://unherd.com (This British magazine doesn't have a specific orientation. It leans slightly cultural conservative, but doesn't have a big bias on other issues in my view, and even on cultural topics it publishes feminist viewpoints.)

And then, since these magazines are all fairly contra-establishment, you can wash down their flaming hot takes with a nice glass of neoliberal apologetics, by simply visiting any other newspaper of magazine, and viewing either the headlines or the opinion section--they are pretty much indistinguishable at this point anyway.

1 comments

Thanks for these. Tablet and Unherd both seem interesting, though perhaps a bit more 'bloglike' and less journalistic than I'd prefer - even The American Conservative had an interesting, albeit short, article about white farmers. Obviously quite partisan though. Your tactic seems to be to collect a diverse array of opinions, whereas I'm a bit more closed minded - I'd rather find an outlet I agree with on most things, or least whose reasoning I agree with and follow, and then just stick to them.