I am one of those that cancelled both NYT and WaPo.
I pay for my local paper (Wilmington News Journal) Phily Inquirer, Pro Publica, The Guardian, about 6 sub stacks (yours included).
I accept that the media is so splintered now that it is almost impossible for young people to be sure what is real and what is not. I read last week on Bluesky by a professor I follow that the kids she teaches think of news as "just more content".
Blew my mind. (I am 65)
It seems to me that the Bilionaires in media don't necessarily strive to publish verified truth, they want clicks. The notion that they even still believe in small "d" democracy seems a stretch. I think they have proven over and over that it is game to see who has the bigger "johnson" (as it were) and who can garner more attention and favor with the current administration.
We are in for a very bumpy ride.
The average person seems uninterested in news, but dang they definitely care about who won the latest round on Survivor, or The Voice, or The Golden Bachelorette, or any number of "competitions" that keep them ignorant. I have never watched any reality television but I understand the allure. It is like real life but there are no real consequences for the viewer.
Trump knows that too. He has played them like the lemmings they seem to be. (al do respect to readers who enjoy reality tv)
It is. But I literally spend $200+/mo to do so. I"m not a rich person, I just understand why the 1st Amendment is, you know, first. A free press is a public good (see 1st amendment), it shouldn't rely on people like me to support it.
I kept my NYT digital subscription and have learned not to “click” on MAGA or ultra-conservative editorials and articles. There are still reporters there bringing news I have a strong urge to know and ponder. Same for several editorial voices, the Well section and anything related to Arts. I read Obituaries daily: This section highlights people who have passed through this world influencing and impacting others; many outside the USA. I find many of these articles inspiring. Many times the associated comments are revelatory. I’d pay for that content separately.
"I’d appreciate hearing from you about your news sources, and your possible solutions to these dilemmas."
- I find the websites of the organizations, companies, writers, etc. I'm interested in subscribing to their newsletters, supporting their work with recurring donations, and buying/reading their books (and I share and recommend all this, too)
- I have a few browser folders (Daily, News, etc.) where I store the URLs of "work" I want to follow on a daily basis and start my day "in them"
- I've subscribed to news and "hands-on" organizations and groups covering regions and conflicts (Ukraine, Afghanistan, Gaza, Rural America, etc.) I'm interested for factual reporting
With respect to solutions...we're in the era of American Oligarchs (and Christian Warriors) because we elevated wealth and notoriety ahead of expertise (thank you Tom Nichols for The Death of Expertise), competence, and compassion. The only practical solution I have is to vote with our feet and our wallets. Stop using the resources feeding our oligarchs (to the extent possible) and make recurring donations of any magnitude to local groups and organizations in your town or city supporting those on the edges of society. Consider volunteering time to support these groups and organizations, too.
I get my news from multiple sources and none of those are the mainstream media outlets because they are clearly biased towards Trump. I want the truth, so I look to the BBC, Meidas, BlueSky, and PBS. If you can recommend other sources that would be great.
I find the news provided by PBS increasingly disappointing. No one there seems to understand Lakoff’s point that repeating a lie in order to call it a lie just reinforces the framing of the situation that the lie represents. Alternate frames are critical. But we accept the framing of taxes as a “burden” to be “reduced” rather than an efficient (and at least potentially equitable) way to pay of services we want ourselves and to support the common good (I don’t have kids but I want educated citizens and well educated children of all class/race origins to be voting, providing services and goods, etc). Anti-tax ideology is treated as fact. Likewise the attacks on “immigrants” that lump together those who fled to the US in desperation with those who are criminals and smugglers as all being “illegals” rather than being able to see their “undocumented” status as an additional cost WE are imposing because our congress is unable to construct a functioning system with both immigration and asylum portals that work.
Great points and I concur that the MSM regularly adopts right-wing framing. They let him/them define the narrative and then follow along like lemmings. It's incredible that they either haven't figure this out in 10 years or worse, they are actively complicit for revenue (which I suspect is true). I'm done screaming at the media for not doing their jobs and only support sources that do.
This is a great point. There is far too much editorialized framing of issues. The sign of a good journalist, to me, is that they are able to spot and avoid conclusory language and stick to the facts.
P.S. If you're seeking "How do I survive what's likely with Trump in The White House" (and more) I recommend Malcolm Nance and his newsletter: https://malcolmnance.substack.com/
I've dumped my WaPo and NYT subscriptions and will not return unless they stop being shills for Trump. Both used to be excellent but in the last couple years they have fallen far. I subscribe to numerous Substack writers that I respect and also subscribe to the Guardian and ProPublica. MSM has become an irrelevant joke for the most part.
I think the real issue is the news deserts. From all accounts it was the low information voters who voted for Trump in enough numbers to push him over the edge. And it’s good quality local news which has disappeared for many. How that comes back is going to be an uphill struggle. That’s how you convince people that national policies impact them (my favorite equivalent of this is by the fantasy writer Terry Pratchett, who, when working as a local news reporter was told by his editor at the High Wycombe newspaper that all news is local. Hence July 22nd 1969, “Men land on Moon over High Wycombe”).
I’m doing my bit by supporting our local news websites (newspapers, like the gazette—except the Pos—have disappeared. They still manage to dig out some good stories but not as many as they used to.
How, @Paul Guinnessy, do we help those in news deserts? It’s a lack of print or even literally sufficient digital access AND interest or curiosity that keeps people uninformed. At almost 78, having grown up in a 2-a-day newspaper + nightly news watching/discussing home and a HS civics teacher that helped instill in me interest and consumption desire. Like many, after the election, I stopped watching news & briefly canceled the NYT tho not WaPo since it’s my now hometown (of nearly 47 years) paper. Substacks have added greatly to my reading - THANK YOU, Margaret, for not making unpaid subscribers feel like chazzers!
I’ve given The Week Junior to numerous young people to create current issue reading habits.
"As one small gesture, I’ve removed the paywall here on American Crisis so all can read and comment at will. I’m grateful for all who subscribe, paid or unpaid. This newsletter now lands in 20,000 emails each week. The vast majority of those are unpaid subscriptions, which is completely fine."
Not such a small gesture! I appreciate it quite a bit (but I am a subscriber to American Crisis!) The problem is there is so much good content on Substack I can't possibly afford to subscribe to every publication and newsletter that I want to read (or watch.) I'm struggling with how to balance support for the platform, the authors, and the content creators I follow with a limited budget. These $50, $80, and $100 subscriptions add up fast! (Definitely putting a strain on maintaining subscriptions to NYT, New Yorker, Atlantic, etc. I may have to start rotating them each year...
“I’m worried that truthful, verified information is becoming unaffordable to many Americans, while disinformation is free for all.”
I share your concern. Regarding news sources: I’ve cancelled my NYT subscription because of their biased reporting leading up to the election. The NYT can no longer be trusted as a factual news source, in my opinion. I’m still trying to find replacement news sources but for now am relying heavily on Substack writers.
A large part of the problem is that FNC is bundled with almost all cable and streaming TV services. If everyone who doesn’t watch FNC didn’t pay for it as part of a monthly subscription bundle, I wonder if FNC would survive. There are streaming services that don’t include FNC.
The only power most of us have is to unsubscribe from the major media outlets. It would be most effective if this were organized and en masse, but Americans don't do collective action, to its detriment. So we do it ineffectively and haphazardly and keep losing. Is there any other developed country that would accept without as much as a whimper the appointments of Miller, Hesgeth, Kennedy, Patel, Bondi, McMahon, to some of the most important positions on Earth? As a Canadian, we look on in horror and fear at the incoming administration. We were told yesterday to clean up organized crime and our drug situation! - this coming from an American with organized crime running the country, where drug pushers like the Sacklers go free, where poor Americans are hapless victims to the ruthless drug pushers from Canad. But it's a lost cause for us here; we are waiting for your criminal president to finish the job.
Mass refusal to participate in the consumption economy would affect this regime. If 1 in 5 Democratic voters—the ones from higher income percentiles—refrained from nonessential spending for a year it would cause a recession.
I agree that the best solutions are not on the horizon. In the meantime we grasp for the only tools we have, like pulling subscriptions and tuning out the networks. I still get news from those sources indirectly by following journalists and media watchers on Bluesky and donating to ProPublica. Also check out Oliver Willis' Breaking News aggregator https://breakingnewsusa.com/
I cancelled my subscriptions to the NYT over the summer due to the sane washing, and the WaPo when bezos pulled the endorsement. I subscribe to the Boston Globe and am a paying subscriber to several Substacks. No twitter/X.
I start my day on Substack, paying for the subscriptions (including this one) and am new to Bluesky (never ever used Twitter.) I was raised by parents and teachers to assess the point of view of any news article; we taught the same to ours, starting them out on the Newark Star Ledger, which will be online only on January 1. I kept my online subscription to the Post because of the journalists there I follow, but if I can get enough from them on Bluesky, I may change my mind.
Ultimately, I’m a consumer, and consumers should make decisions that both align with their values and bring them some form of gratification. Corporate media no longer does that for me, so it’s not in my best interests, or mental health, to spend my dollars on them any longer. When democracy was on the line along with the principles of our Constitution, they refused to step up. They chose to normalize the abnormal and legitimize the obscene. Jan. 6 should have been treated as an ongoing political news story with the same gravity of 9/11, the attack on Pearl Harbor and any other assault on our basic freedoms through history. Instead, they treated as no different from the price of eggs, simply because this was an attack from within by fellow Americans who were white, rather than an attack from foreign adversaries with different skin colors. That’s a bridge too far for me as a consumer. I spent much of my life as a passionate football fan but made the decision a couple years ago to never watch another game because of the blackballing of Kaepernick, the CTE coverup, racist coaching hiring practices and more (all of which has largely been swept under the rug by corporate media). I don’t see it as a personal sacrifice because, like with corporate media, the disgust I feel about these things now outweighs any enjoyment or satisfaction they bring. I certainly don’t begrudge others for making different decisions, however, or deny that that these things continue to make positive contributions to society. A reporter that I hired to her first newspaper job as an intern in 2010 won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for The New York Times last year. Her work and their work are incredibly important in many ways and I’m grateful for it.
The sanewashing of a fascist cult and refusal to hold it and its leader to the same standards that they held a competent sitting president and his party (which actually respects democracy and the rule of law) is something that the corporate media, including NYT, will never escape when it comes to the verdict of history. It was American journalism’s saddest moment and greatest historical failure. And just as I’ve refused to move on from the horror of Jan. 6, I will never move on from that failure.
I'm incredibly grateful to you for the work that you do. As one of the people who can't afford full price subscriptions, your generosity is greatly appreciated. As a person born at Deaconess Hospital a long time ago, I have followed your career with Buffalo Pride. As a former English teacher, I've been amazed with the precision and clarity of your pieces. Thank you! The cowards like Bezos will have trouble sleeping. Brave people like you, Mark Jacob, Charlie Sykes, Joyce Vance, and so many others give me hope and the courage to keep fighting. Thank you!
“I’m worried that truthful, verified information is becoming unaffordable to many Americans, while disinformation is free for all.” This. 💯 This is the new American horror story.
I have cancelled the New York Times and the Washington Post. I have kept my subscriptions to The Bulwark and Talking Points Memo, although since the election I have not read either as rigorously as I had done previously - I need to protect my mental health.
"As one small gesture, I’ve removed the paywall here on American Crisis so all can read and comment at will."
It's not small at all, thanks.
I am one of those that cancelled both NYT and WaPo.
I pay for my local paper (Wilmington News Journal) Phily Inquirer, Pro Publica, The Guardian, about 6 sub stacks (yours included).
I accept that the media is so splintered now that it is almost impossible for young people to be sure what is real and what is not. I read last week on Bluesky by a professor I follow that the kids she teaches think of news as "just more content".
Blew my mind. (I am 65)
It seems to me that the Bilionaires in media don't necessarily strive to publish verified truth, they want clicks. The notion that they even still believe in small "d" democracy seems a stretch. I think they have proven over and over that it is game to see who has the bigger "johnson" (as it were) and who can garner more attention and favor with the current administration.
We are in for a very bumpy ride.
The average person seems uninterested in news, but dang they definitely care about who won the latest round on Survivor, or The Voice, or The Golden Bachelorette, or any number of "competitions" that keep them ignorant. I have never watched any reality television but I understand the allure. It is like real life but there are no real consequences for the viewer.
Trump knows that too. He has played them like the lemmings they seem to be. (al do respect to readers who enjoy reality tv)
It’s great you support local journalism. It’s extremely important.
It is. But I literally spend $200+/mo to do so. I"m not a rich person, I just understand why the 1st Amendment is, you know, first. A free press is a public good (see 1st amendment), it shouldn't rely on people like me to support it.
https://mailchi.mp/indepthnh/good-morning-new-hampshire-wld7uceklf?e=a1ab3e9c2e
I kept my NYT digital subscription and have learned not to “click” on MAGA or ultra-conservative editorials and articles. There are still reporters there bringing news I have a strong urge to know and ponder. Same for several editorial voices, the Well section and anything related to Arts. I read Obituaries daily: This section highlights people who have passed through this world influencing and impacting others; many outside the USA. I find many of these articles inspiring. Many times the associated comments are revelatory. I’d pay for that content separately.
Americans love entertainment, are additcted in fact.
"I’d appreciate hearing from you about your news sources, and your possible solutions to these dilemmas."
- I find the websites of the organizations, companies, writers, etc. I'm interested in subscribing to their newsletters, supporting their work with recurring donations, and buying/reading their books (and I share and recommend all this, too)
- I have a few browser folders (Daily, News, etc.) where I store the URLs of "work" I want to follow on a daily basis and start my day "in them"
- I've subscribed to news and "hands-on" organizations and groups covering regions and conflicts (Ukraine, Afghanistan, Gaza, Rural America, etc.) I'm interested for factual reporting
With respect to solutions...we're in the era of American Oligarchs (and Christian Warriors) because we elevated wealth and notoriety ahead of expertise (thank you Tom Nichols for The Death of Expertise), competence, and compassion. The only practical solution I have is to vote with our feet and our wallets. Stop using the resources feeding our oligarchs (to the extent possible) and make recurring donations of any magnitude to local groups and organizations in your town or city supporting those on the edges of society. Consider volunteering time to support these groups and organizations, too.
I get my news from multiple sources and none of those are the mainstream media outlets because they are clearly biased towards Trump. I want the truth, so I look to the BBC, Meidas, BlueSky, and PBS. If you can recommend other sources that would be great.
I find the news provided by PBS increasingly disappointing. No one there seems to understand Lakoff’s point that repeating a lie in order to call it a lie just reinforces the framing of the situation that the lie represents. Alternate frames are critical. But we accept the framing of taxes as a “burden” to be “reduced” rather than an efficient (and at least potentially equitable) way to pay of services we want ourselves and to support the common good (I don’t have kids but I want educated citizens and well educated children of all class/race origins to be voting, providing services and goods, etc). Anti-tax ideology is treated as fact. Likewise the attacks on “immigrants” that lump together those who fled to the US in desperation with those who are criminals and smugglers as all being “illegals” rather than being able to see their “undocumented” status as an additional cost WE are imposing because our congress is unable to construct a functioning system with both immigration and asylum portals that work.
Great points and I concur that the MSM regularly adopts right-wing framing. They let him/them define the narrative and then follow along like lemmings. It's incredible that they either haven't figure this out in 10 years or worse, they are actively complicit for revenue (which I suspect is true). I'm done screaming at the media for not doing their jobs and only support sources that do.
Totally agree with your complicit point! Profit trumps everything! (pun intended)
This is a great point. There is far too much editorialized framing of issues. The sign of a good journalist, to me, is that they are able to spot and avoid conclusory language and stick to the facts.
https://warontherocks.com/
https://cat-uxo.com/
https://www.stripes.com/
https://www.transparency.org/en/
https://inara.org/
https://www.nationhoodlab.org/
https://www.understandingwar.org/
https://nomoredeaths.org/en/
https://camarra.substack.com/
https://www.statnews.com/
https://www.38north.org/
https://en.ovdinfo.org/
https://www.shoresh.institute/
https://smallwarsjournal.com/
https://community.solutions/built-for-zero/functional-zero/
https://www.health.mil/Military-Health-Topics/Warfighter-Brain-Health
P.S. If you're seeking "How do I survive what's likely with Trump in The White House" (and more) I recommend Malcolm Nance and his newsletter: https://malcolmnance.substack.com/
Thank you so much!
“Democracy Now” is great. Amy has been doing an excellent job for most of her life.
I've dumped my WaPo and NYT subscriptions and will not return unless they stop being shills for Trump. Both used to be excellent but in the last couple years they have fallen far. I subscribe to numerous Substack writers that I respect and also subscribe to the Guardian and ProPublica. MSM has become an irrelevant joke for the most part.
I think the real issue is the news deserts. From all accounts it was the low information voters who voted for Trump in enough numbers to push him over the edge. And it’s good quality local news which has disappeared for many. How that comes back is going to be an uphill struggle. That’s how you convince people that national policies impact them (my favorite equivalent of this is by the fantasy writer Terry Pratchett, who, when working as a local news reporter was told by his editor at the High Wycombe newspaper that all news is local. Hence July 22nd 1969, “Men land on Moon over High Wycombe”).
I’m doing my bit by supporting our local news websites (newspapers, like the gazette—except the Pos—have disappeared. They still manage to dig out some good stories but not as many as they used to.
How, @Paul Guinnessy, do we help those in news deserts? It’s a lack of print or even literally sufficient digital access AND interest or curiosity that keeps people uninformed. At almost 78, having grown up in a 2-a-day newspaper + nightly news watching/discussing home and a HS civics teacher that helped instill in me interest and consumption desire. Like many, after the election, I stopped watching news & briefly canceled the NYT tho not WaPo since it’s my now hometown (of nearly 47 years) paper. Substacks have added greatly to my reading - THANK YOU, Margaret, for not making unpaid subscribers feel like chazzers!
I’ve given The Week Junior to numerous young people to create current issue reading habits.
What else can we do?
Thanks.
"As one small gesture, I’ve removed the paywall here on American Crisis so all can read and comment at will. I’m grateful for all who subscribe, paid or unpaid. This newsletter now lands in 20,000 emails each week. The vast majority of those are unpaid subscriptions, which is completely fine."
Not such a small gesture! I appreciate it quite a bit (but I am a subscriber to American Crisis!) The problem is there is so much good content on Substack I can't possibly afford to subscribe to every publication and newsletter that I want to read (or watch.) I'm struggling with how to balance support for the platform, the authors, and the content creators I follow with a limited budget. These $50, $80, and $100 subscriptions add up fast! (Definitely putting a strain on maintaining subscriptions to NYT, New Yorker, Atlantic, etc. I may have to start rotating them each year...
Agree. I really like SubStack, but it really adds up fast.
“I’m worried that truthful, verified information is becoming unaffordable to many Americans, while disinformation is free for all.”
I share your concern. Regarding news sources: I’ve cancelled my NYT subscription because of their biased reporting leading up to the election. The NYT can no longer be trusted as a factual news source, in my opinion. I’m still trying to find replacement news sources but for now am relying heavily on Substack writers.
A large part of the problem is that FNC is bundled with almost all cable and streaming TV services. If everyone who doesn’t watch FNC didn’t pay for it as part of a monthly subscription bundle, I wonder if FNC would survive. There are streaming services that don’t include FNC.
That’s where it’s at! If Faux “news” wasn’t free and people had to pay extra to watch it, I don’t think it would survive.
The only power most of us have is to unsubscribe from the major media outlets. It would be most effective if this were organized and en masse, but Americans don't do collective action, to its detriment. So we do it ineffectively and haphazardly and keep losing. Is there any other developed country that would accept without as much as a whimper the appointments of Miller, Hesgeth, Kennedy, Patel, Bondi, McMahon, to some of the most important positions on Earth? As a Canadian, we look on in horror and fear at the incoming administration. We were told yesterday to clean up organized crime and our drug situation! - this coming from an American with organized crime running the country, where drug pushers like the Sacklers go free, where poor Americans are hapless victims to the ruthless drug pushers from Canad. But it's a lost cause for us here; we are waiting for your criminal president to finish the job.
Mass refusal to participate in the consumption economy would affect this regime. If 1 in 5 Democratic voters—the ones from higher income percentiles—refrained from nonessential spending for a year it would cause a recession.
I agree that the best solutions are not on the horizon. In the meantime we grasp for the only tools we have, like pulling subscriptions and tuning out the networks. I still get news from those sources indirectly by following journalists and media watchers on Bluesky and donating to ProPublica. Also check out Oliver Willis' Breaking News aggregator https://breakingnewsusa.com/
I cancelled my subscriptions to the NYT over the summer due to the sane washing, and the WaPo when bezos pulled the endorsement. I subscribe to the Boston Globe and am a paying subscriber to several Substacks. No twitter/X.
Meet me on BlueSky @ginnysk.bsky.social
Just followed you on Bluesky 😉
I start my day on Substack, paying for the subscriptions (including this one) and am new to Bluesky (never ever used Twitter.) I was raised by parents and teachers to assess the point of view of any news article; we taught the same to ours, starting them out on the Newark Star Ledger, which will be online only on January 1. I kept my online subscription to the Post because of the journalists there I follow, but if I can get enough from them on Bluesky, I may change my mind.
Ultimately, I’m a consumer, and consumers should make decisions that both align with their values and bring them some form of gratification. Corporate media no longer does that for me, so it’s not in my best interests, or mental health, to spend my dollars on them any longer. When democracy was on the line along with the principles of our Constitution, they refused to step up. They chose to normalize the abnormal and legitimize the obscene. Jan. 6 should have been treated as an ongoing political news story with the same gravity of 9/11, the attack on Pearl Harbor and any other assault on our basic freedoms through history. Instead, they treated as no different from the price of eggs, simply because this was an attack from within by fellow Americans who were white, rather than an attack from foreign adversaries with different skin colors. That’s a bridge too far for me as a consumer. I spent much of my life as a passionate football fan but made the decision a couple years ago to never watch another game because of the blackballing of Kaepernick, the CTE coverup, racist coaching hiring practices and more (all of which has largely been swept under the rug by corporate media). I don’t see it as a personal sacrifice because, like with corporate media, the disgust I feel about these things now outweighs any enjoyment or satisfaction they bring. I certainly don’t begrudge others for making different decisions, however, or deny that that these things continue to make positive contributions to society. A reporter that I hired to her first newspaper job as an intern in 2010 won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for The New York Times last year. Her work and their work are incredibly important in many ways and I’m grateful for it.
The sanewashing of a fascist cult and refusal to hold it and its leader to the same standards that they held a competent sitting president and his party (which actually respects democracy and the rule of law) is something that the corporate media, including NYT, will never escape when it comes to the verdict of history. It was American journalism’s saddest moment and greatest historical failure. And just as I’ve refused to move on from the horror of Jan. 6, I will never move on from that failure.
I'm incredibly grateful to you for the work that you do. As one of the people who can't afford full price subscriptions, your generosity is greatly appreciated. As a person born at Deaconess Hospital a long time ago, I have followed your career with Buffalo Pride. As a former English teacher, I've been amazed with the precision and clarity of your pieces. Thank you! The cowards like Bezos will have trouble sleeping. Brave people like you, Mark Jacob, Charlie Sykes, Joyce Vance, and so many others give me hope and the courage to keep fighting. Thank you!
Maryann Dorgan Gray
“I’m worried that truthful, verified information is becoming unaffordable to many Americans, while disinformation is free for all.” This. 💯 This is the new American horror story.
I have cancelled the New York Times and the Washington Post. I have kept my subscriptions to The Bulwark and Talking Points Memo, although since the election I have not read either as rigorously as I had done previously - I need to protect my mental health.