Journalism I'm Supporting, January 2020

Good journalism is one of those things everybody wants to have available to benefit from, but fewer are interested in paying for. I’m hardly a paragon of virtue in this regard, but I have gotten to the point where there are several journalistic establishments or efforts that I’m happy to support via paid subscriptions. Currently that list includes (in alphabetical order):

The Athletic
I’ve known this one was around for a while, but finally bit the bullet after reading a couple really excellent articles for free. Really solid sports journalism. Something interesting to read pretty much every day.

The Atlantic
Middle-of-the road current events writing and opinion. My digital subscription includes a subscription to the monthly print edition. I counted it success this week when I actually finished reading last month’s issue within the same week that the new issue was delivered. Thoughtful stuff, worth my time.

Let me just interject here that these first two have excellent iOS apps, but dang if their app icons don’t both just feature large capital 'A’s. At least a little bit confusing.

I mean, really…

The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)
My local daily newspaper. Independently owned, which is a rarity these days. There are only so many newsworthy things to write about in a city of 150,000 people, but I’m happy to put some dollars to supporting their efforts.

Iowa Public Radio
I’ve been a low-grade supporter of IPR for several years now. There are pretty much only 3 things that ever get played on my car radio (at least when it’s under my control): podcasts, Cubs baseball, and IPR.

Popular Info by Judd Legum
Less of an establishment pick here. Judd Legum is an independent journalist who publishes Popular.Info, a newsletter focused on accountability specifically for Facebook and how Facebook handles political topics and advertising. He’s been able to make enough noise in some rather egregious situations that Facebook has been forced to respond and make changes. It’s hard to underestimate the impact that Facebook is having on our national political conversation, so I’m glad to have somebody poking at it on the regular.

The Washington Post
I want to have access to one of the major national newspapers of record. I’ve subscribed to both the Post and The New York Times at various times, but the Post has tended to provide more stories I was really interested in and less times when I wanted to throw my phone across the room while reading. (Thankfully the NYT crossword app can be subscribed to separately!)