[petercooper]

I was subscribed to this. It's beautifully designed, well written, good paper stock, the works. If the idea appeals to you, it's worth trying.

Ultimately, it didn't work for me, but that's my fault. Despite my best intentions, it turned out I wasn't interested in reading about world affairs beyond the news cycle.

[Seattle3503]

Did they show the same news as everyone, but later? That seems like it doesn't fully leverage the format. The format seems like it would be good for things that are subtle and got overlooked at the time. But I guess maybe the normal news cycle can surface those same things when they reach a breaking point.

[pavon]

I disagree. I think there are quite a few weekly/monthly papers that focus on long-form dives on select topics, like the print versions of the Economist, Atlantic, Harper, etc. However, I found that when I was using them as my main source of news I would have large gaps in my awareness of important events that had occurred. I felt like those magazines were best as a supplement, not a replacement - but I'm not a news junkie and was trying to decrease the time spent reading the news without being uninformed. They weren't helpful in that regard (exception - Economist was good enough summary of international news, but not domestic).

I really do just want the same news, condensed and distilled, instead of blow-by-blow details padded to maximize engagement, and I haven't found it anywhere.

Edit: I see Delayed Gratification is quarterly which is probably too delayed to replace primary news and better suited for supplementary deep dives.

[petercooper]

It's been several years (and the issues are in my office so I could take a look later) but I recall it was a mix. They'd sometimes group big stories together thematically (like when all the billionaires were starting to get into space) but also do longer-term reflections on single, complex stories like the Salisbury Novichok incident.

I don't recall it really surfacing things that didn't make the news cycle, but one thing I failed to mention is they had (have?) really good infographics/visualizations! They have a lot of the more recent ones here https://www.slow-journalism.com/filter/infographics

[nzealand]

This is exactly correct. Here is what the latest issue covers:

His exfiltration of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro was swift, effective and - as we found in our follow-up reporting - surprisingly popular among Venezuelans (plo). But then the 47th president threw himself into a new venture, a major attack on Iran. Far from being a surgical strike à la Caracas, it rapidly spiralled into a regional conflagration which threatened to blast the global economy off its hinges. We have analysed the build-up and fall-out of the Iran war in forensic detail in an infographic extravaganza (p70). While Trump loomed large throughout the quarter, adding an Ice operation in Minneapolis (p30) and unseemly wranglings over Greenland (p50) into the headline-grabbing mix, his was not the only game in town. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested (P66), a football final turned into theatrical chaos (p40), the power of Al gave hope to sufferers of ultra-rare diseases (p80) and victory was declared over ferrets on a Northern Irish island (p100). Meanwhile Nasa scientists announced fascinating revelations drawn from their analysis of a thimbleful of space dust obtained at great expense from a four billion-year-old asteroid (p56).

edit: you can see some samples on their website: https://www.slow-journalism.com/back-issue/62-jan-mar-2026

[wavemode]

The target audience of this doesn't appear to be people who don't like reading the news. But rather people who like reading journalism that has perspective and nuance (which tend to improve when you take your time to let a story fully develop before writing about it).

[jihadjihad]

I subscribed for a year, but like a sibling comment said, it was too focused on Commonwealth news and culture to be worth my time.

It was however entertaining to receive in the mail, inside a nice form-fitting cardboard box with Royal Mail elegantly stamped on it.