The following essay repeats material that I originally posted on Facebook.
For years, I subscribed on-line to both the New York Times and the Washington Post. I rarely read any given article past the headlines, but I thought it was important to support high-quality journalism. I looked on it as an act of charity, the way I do of my continuing support for The Trevor Project.
Since the start of 2024, I began to see the Times increasingly include articles calling President Biden’s competency into account due to his age, while completely ignoring Trump on the same issue. They also seemed to be ignoring many of Trump’s fascist political positions at the expense of criticizing Biden’s policies.
This reached its peak for me when the Times repeatedly (and, it turned out, erroneously) reported that neurologists were visiting the White House, assuming that they were there to assess Biden.
On 9-Jul-2024, I wrote:
That’s it. I just cancelled my NYT subscription.
When you cancel on-line, they provide a brief exit questionnaire. I clicked on the radio button labeled “I have concerns about the Times’ coverage.”
In the comment section, I repeated something I’ve seen on FB:
At 173 years, I question whether the Times is too old continue its role as newspaper of record. It’s time to step aside and make room for a different news organization.
In other news, I understand that some neurologists read the New York Times. Doubtless this means that the Times has Parkinson’s.
I still had my subscription to the Washington Post to keep me up-to-date on national news.
For those who don’t remember the timeline: As a result of an apparent poor performance at a debate, and partly as a result of what I perceived as biased reporting by the Times and other sources, President Biden stepped aside in his campaign. Vice-President Harris assumed the role of the Democratic nominee for President.
I hoped that would be the end of it, as far as news organizations were concerned. However, it was too good to last.
On 26-Oct-2024, I wrote:
It’s moral dilemma time.
I cancelled my NY Times subscription for their clearly biased reporting on Biden vs. Trump. At the time, I said I’d rely on the Washington Post instead.
Now, in an act of cowardice, the publisher of the Washington Post has announced that the paper will not endorse a candidate for President this year.
This is a ridiculous acceptance of fascism. If Harris loses, does either paper seriously believe that it will be permitted to function normally under a dictatorship?
I feel I should cancel my Post subscription as well. If I do, what would then be my source of national news?
The Philadelphia Inquirer is looking more and more attractive…
In that post, I responded to myself:
Casual browsing told me (unsurprisingly) that the Philly Inquirer is too focused on local Philadelphia news for my taste. If I lived in Philly, it would be a different story.
Some alternatives I’m considering:
When I look at this chart, I see that those sources are similarly ranked in bias:
And there’s this well-known chart.
Finally:
I made the switch formally. I’ve changed my daily news feed from NY Times, WaPo. and LoHud to:
My WaPo subscription will remain active for a while, until July. Maybe WaPo or the Times will make amends. We’ll see.
Yesterday, I added:
This is a rumor of a rumor, so take it with a container of salt:
It appears that enough people have cancelled their Washington Post subscriptions for it to have an impact.
You may need a BlueSky account to see that link; I’m not sure.
Meanwhile, please feel free to vote with your wallet. That might be more effective than voting on Nov 5.
I haven’t started sending any donations or subscriptions to these three news sources yet. It’s only been a few days, and I want to see how I feel about their reporting.
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