Do you pay for your news?

The reason why I ask is because I keep running into New York Times articles that keep pushing a subscription. The new membership is somewhat cheap, $1 a week. Then it bumps up from that to $6.25 a week. On the other hand I've never had to spend money on the news. Although I did pay for a regional newspaper way back in the day and Wired, but not lately. Not since the internetz got real. It's pretty easy to find your news for free and you can link it for free too.

Do you pay for your news?

Nah. My mom pay for one and they allow sharing with up to 5 people, so I am atm leeching of her subscription. Will most likely take over the payment of it in a few years.

It is better by a huge margin imo. The free news here have so awful clickbait titles that I have stopped visiting those sites all together.

Yes.

I pay for Apple News and the NYT. The NYT I used to pay full for, until I tried to cancel. Then they dropped the price to like $4 monthly instead of $15+ I was paying, for a year. Now I’m paying $8 for another year, until it goes back up to regular.

Will probably end up keeping it, so their plan worked.

No. I might consider it if the content was very focused and unique, but I wouldn't want it to cost more than ~$5/mo.

Most of the news I get in my feed is posted in many places, so if I get pay-walled I will just block the source.

I get a fair amount of news via YouTube.

Nope

As I expected.

News, no. Analysis and editorials, yes.

Signed, long time The Economist subscriber.

No. Already we are constantly broadcast bad world news. I don’t need more negative world news.

No. And the harassments messages they spam makes me never want to give them money.

Back when I was reading newspapers, I did pay $2 bucks before social media became a thing. But no, I don't pay anything like that for news, I just get my daily news on Twitter.

My folks have a subscription to their local paper (Contra Costa Times) and they get the Wall Street Journal on Sunday. I enjoy reading it when I visit them, and they always clip out articles I might find interesting.

I admit it's kind of tempting to do that and if I actually had time in the morning to read the paper I would, as local newspapers tend to be a good, varied source of information with writers and contributors you can sort of get a feel for. I think written press still has a lot more accountability and therefore credibility than the talking heads on cable news and youtube.

But no, I don't pay for news. I can get the information from a lot of places, and it's easy enough to filter out bias and confirm whether they are lies or not if you use enough sources.

*waits for youtube video link*

No. It’s so readily available from so many sources.

I pay for some of it. The best content is often not free.

This is also part of the reason misinformation spreads so easily while the truth struggles to reach low-information audiences.

The Truth Is Paywalled But The Lies Are Free ❧ Current Affairs

I don't directly pay for news, but I don't hate the idea either. I pay subscriptions for much stupider things, like streaming services.

I do indirectly pay for it though, since I pay taxes, some of which will go to our public news networks here in Australia.

I got some news for ya.

Send me $1000 buckaroos and I'll let you read it

You know it's good because you gave me good money for it 💰

Bet you guys are big star citizen fans

I'd buy that $48,000 all-ship package if I was a millionaire, so yes 😁😋

To be fair, there is some reason for it.

Paid-for content is less beholden to ad revenue and various powers. So, for example, a newspaper owned by the Koch family is less likely to be critical of various industries and conservative agendas whereas a newspaper that is independent is more likely to be objective in their criticisms.

There is of course bias with both as there is with all things, but there is less chance for outright lies and propaganda with the latter.

So I guess what I am saying is, don't scoff at paid news. Not saying it's perfect but it is likely better than free in terms of actual reporting.

Additionally, people that actually pay for news probably want quality reporting, and if word got around that an outlet was doing a shit job, lying, obviously serving an agenda, etc. they would lose subscribers.

People wanting to exist in an echo chamber can do it for free; people who actually care about reporting are more likely to pay for it.

It's just different buisness models.

Advertising model vs Subscription model

Being Subscription model doesn't mean it's news is any more accurate or unbiased.

I'd say if you pay for NYT or WaPo, you are actively paying to be in an echo chamber. Which is even worse than being in one for free.

I pay for some local news to support it

Unless they get enough income from one side, so they no longer have to pretend impartiality and can become pure propaganda, like all the right wing grifters on YT that sarge keeps posting over here.

He even admitted that that is the case in the reply above, though, of course, it's only the others doing it, lol.

Both liberal and conservative platforms do it, never claimed it was one sided

@sargentd:

Had you paid for your news - or at least been more discerning about where you get your information - maybe you wouldn't have fallen for the Moon landing hoax bollockery.

*Shrugs* Just saying.

No. Barely read any news anywhere. I'm not that interested in the world. And if there's something huge going on, I'll hear about it whether I want to or not anyway.

I'm sure I can find a source that requires you to pay in order read about moon landing conspiracies

@sargentd:

And if you decided to go ahead give that "source" money without doing your due diligence as a discerning consumer, then you're a gullible simpleton who deserves to be grifted.

Hence the "maybe."

When you say "due dillegence" for choosing news to pay for.

I think what you mean is making sure the news you are paying for shares confirmation bias with one's own views 👍

@sargentd:

Ah yes, the Moon landing hoax bollockery is just a difference of "one's own views," and not utter nonsense that can be instantly debunked with publicly available information.

Nope, not at all.

"Public available information" implies its free.

Well, that's got to be shitty info if it's free, the real news can only be gained with cash amirite

@sargentd:

*Facepalms*

Quality of information has nothing to do with whether it's free or not, but if you were required to pay for it, a reasonable person might do their due diligence and evaluate its quality first before spending their hard-earned money.

FFS, I just had to do the thinking and spell it all out for you. No wonder you fell for that Moon landing hoax nonsense.

Hey... again

When you say "due dillegence" for choosing news to pay for.

I think what you mean is making sure the news you are paying for shares confirmation bias with one's own views 👍

Used to get a subscription to the Express News years ago but cancelled it. I just read the news online for free that's mainly local.

I don't believe I shall 😎

I don't pay for cable (besides internet).

I do pay for morningstar (financial news) and WSJ (financial and regular news content).

Most of my news perusing comes from Google News (although I get annoyed at any sites with paywalls), talk radio, and WSJ though.