Canceled WAPO Subscription

Comments

• Old_Joe

  January 4

  I'm pretty close behind too.
• Mark

  January 4 edited January 4

  I canceled as soon as it was announced. Next on the list will be Amazon Prime. Sadly I've read that Tim Cook can be added to that cartoon.
• BenWP

  January 4

  Fortunately, and as reported by the Times, The Atlantic is hiring and beefing up its political coverage. I have really enjoyed this magazine, one I had read in the distant past but which I did not rejoin until 2022.
• Old_Joe

  January 4

  Yes- as other resources diminish the Atlantic becomes increasingly relevant.
• AndyJ

  January 4 edited January 4

  I'm in the WaPo cancelled ranks too. It's slid a long way downhill since the Watergate glory days. I've also been thinking about The Atlantic, and wondering if they'll have a shot at picking up J. Rubin and a few others from WaPo.
  
  I contribute to ProPublica, which seems to the best (only?) outfit doing deep-dive investigative reporting now. Also giving to States Newsroom, a nonprofit amalgam of a central, national entity and an arm in (I think) every state now. What they do in my state is by far the best journalism here, leaving the NPR affiliates and all the newspapers in the dust on state and selected local news.
  
  The New Republic is good for getting the dirtiest dirt on the principals of the regime about to come to power, if that's of interest.
  
  Don't forget Paul Krugman. He's shed the NYT shackles, and just about every post is a gem.
• BenWP

  January 5

  Thanks for those thoughts @AndyJ. I also made a contribution to ProPublica in ‘24. The Atlantic did hire someone noteworthy (name escapes me) from WaPo recently. Ron Brownstein has been getting quite a lot of air time at CNN talking about Carter
• Crash

  January 5

  Matt Wuerker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for Politico, called the decision to kill Ms. Telnaes’s cartoon “spineless,” adding that the storied Post cartoonist Herbert Block, known as Herblock, and Ben Bradlee, a former editor of The Post, were “spinning, kicking and screaming in their graves.”
  
  Plutocratic sycophants. No integrity. Zilch. I have enjoyed the round-table discussions on Friday evenings on PBS: "Washington Week with The Atlantic." Jeffrey Goldberg hosts. By the time they get to Friday evening, it's not news anymore, at least not for me. But there are some sly political angles on things I'd never have dreamed of, because i'm just not that slippery. They are "all over" the headlines, and beyond.
• AndyJ

  January 5 edited January 5

  @BenWP, here's a piece on two WaPo staffers who joined The Atlantic last week, with a few other interesting tidbits. Says The Atlantic is beefing up for covering the new administration "rigorously."
• Old_Joe

  January 5

  We already subscribe to The Atlantic, both print & internet, so I'll be interested to watch all of this.
• hank

  January 6 edited January 6

  WP was an excellent newspaper 25 years ago. Newspapers & broadcast used to adhere to a separation between opinion pieces and hard news. Nowadays it’s all jumbled together. Just a matter of degree. What to do?
• BenWP

  January 6

  Thanks for that article @AndyJ. For about two years I had been dissatisfied with the content (not political) of the Wapo. I wrote the editor to point out that much of the web version of the paper needlessly provided multiple links to the same articles appearing that day. I also complained that much of the paper resembled a Sunday supplement and contained far too many personal advice columns for a serious newspaper.
• Old_Joe

  January 6

  Yes.
• AndyJ

  January 6

  @BenWP, your last sentence describes a lot of the NYT content too -- an overgrown Lifestyle section.
• Old_Joe

  January 7

  Yes, again.
• BenWP

  January 7

  @AndyJ: Agreed. I rarely crack the Thursday and Sunday Style sections.
• hank

  January 12 edited January 12

  This brought back bitter memories for me. About 5 years ago I had really gotten into writing product reviews at Amazon. With each new effort my writing skills improved. In placing reviews from “most helpful” to “least helpful” Amazon employs an algorithm that takes into account your past success record + reader responses to the new review. Knowing I was already highly rated, I undertook to review a Woody Allen film. Once a review goes up, you can edit the hell out of it. So after it posted I devoted hours and hours to such revision. A tweak here. A tweak there. The effort paid off. A few readers responded favorably. The review quickly vaulted to among the “Top 5 Reviews” for that film and received prominent placement where it would then be widely read and commented on.
  
  However, a week later the review dropped to around #1200 (bottom of the pack). Might as well have been buried 6-feet under. Few read the last-place reviews. All I can figure out is I’d included a line in the review to the effect that the film depicted “a stereotypical (ethnicity) family.” I have to believe someone saw that and took it as a negative remark aimed at an ethnic group and complained to Amazon. I called on the phone and tried to learn why my top review had suddenly fallen to last place. Of course, Nobody knew nothin about the matter.
  
  I rarely write reviews any longer. It seems Mr. Bezos is very good at burying things.
• Old_Joe

  January 12

  Wow.
• BenWP

  January 14

  WaPo reducing workforce by 4% according to the Times. Outflows are hard to stem once underway, as certain MF firms have learned about their AUM.
• BenWP

  January 15

  New thread here (This Might Be Promising) has taken up the topic of desertions from the WaPo.