We’ll give you a free NFL Football phone!
Do you still subscribe to magazines and/or newspapers?
I haven’t since 2010. That’s when I cancelled The Economist when it basically became a libertarian rag with decent foreign (ie: not North American) news. I probably was one of its more unlikely readers as I didn’t work in finance and not a RWer obsessed with money but I wanted to understand how money/business works as my engineering degree didn’t exactly prepare me for working in corporate world (and they reported a lot of Asian news that wasn’t Tom Friedman like bullshit) which is how I became a subscriber in 1998.
After that I would buy an issue from time to time with a subject that intrigued me, but I don’t do that anymore.
In the 90s to the late 00s, I used buy a fair number of magazines from time to time like Canadian ‘humor’ magazine Frank, Sports Illustrated, Spy Magazine or Hobby magazines like Scale Aircraft Modeler or Fine Scale Modeler. I haven’t done that since 2012 when I was hurting for a job and money and never returned.
As for newspapers, since most Canadian Fishwraps just regurgitate RW editorials and AP wire… not much point. I can read that online, have less dirty fingers/brain and less recycling to take care of. I wasn’t going to give fake Brit Conrad Black and his pseudo intellectual piffle any of my money.
This is coming from someone who still reads a lot. Got my start when I learned to read and began reading Time magazine when I was around 8 as dad subscribed to Time and various local newspapers (English and Korean)… we used to fight over who got to read what first. Slowly he got sick of Time especially when it became more about “personalities” a la People Magazine with news in the late 90s. I think he and I were both deeply annoyed with the 2005 People of the Year (which was anyone alive at that time) because it was such a stupid fucking copout. He cancelled it after 37 years.
It’s amazing how habits changed in less than 30 years. I still read, but most of it comes from online. I do subscribe to a few online services, but not anything remotely related to what was collectively known as the MSM.
Or want to ramble on about anything else on your mind?
Gardener’s World magazine, New York Times physical paper, and a record subscription through the Secretly Canadian record label.
About the only stuff that survives is the niche mags. And anything about the Kardashians.
I was considering a subscription to the NYT but the only section I would happily read is Krugman, and the entertainment section. Since they don’t have comics or much of a sports section… Well I passed.
I subscribe to Missouri Conservationist (although it is free to Missouri residents) – the magazine from the Missouri Conservation Department.
Side note, we have great state parks and land management here despite the state overall being a piece of shit. In the 1970s, voters passed a state sales tax that covers over half of the Conservation Department’s needs and in the 1980s we started a state sales tax that covers state parks and soil/water management.
Even our privatization freak of an alleged ex drug dealer of a premier won’t touch the provincial parks (for now) or he’d have a riot at Queens Park.
Tiger Beat, The Watchtower, Anarchy Today, & Penthouse Letters. I’m well rounded!😀
Penthouse Letters is more truthful than The Watchtower
Tiger Beat… After their take down of the Two Corey’s, I question their veracity and commitment to journalism.
I will never forgive them for driving Andy Gibb into an early grave.
I get our city monthly magazine. It’s about $1.50 a month and it’s a decent source of events, restaurant reviews, bios of local people, things like that.
It gets a ton of local advertsing which I assume covers most of the cost of publishing. I would bet more local papers could survive in a limited but OK version if they weren’t taken over by hedge funds, saddled with debt, and expected to generate double digit returns.
God, I still get the New Yorker. I don’t know why, because I haven’t subscribed in a good long while.
I think something is seriously wrong with Conde Nast’s IT systems. I started getting GQ for free and when I called them to ask why, their call center had no idea except I was marked as getting it for free.
Maybe they’re just sending out copies of the New Yorker, GQ, and whatever else for free just to goose the subscription numbers they show advertisers?
only magazine i subscribe to is the metalworkers magazine that comes with union membership……ive never actually read it….but i get one every few months
its worth the €7.50 a month tho as next month i get 13% pay rise back paid from june…also slightly more compensation for travel costs….which is paid out per km traveled…and as i mostly walk to work..thats pretty much free money for me…