By Dennis D. McDonald

This article, originally published on October 19, 2021, was updated on December 14, 2023 to reflect my current list of news sources and the cancellation of our Washington Post subscription due to its frequently misleading headlines and its increasing unreliability as an objective news source.

We pay for digital subscriptions to the Washington Post and the New York Times. We also get the paper edition of the Post delivered daily* to our home. I consider the Post to be my “home town newspaper” (we live in Alexandria Virginia) and have subscribed for several decades.

Lately though I’ve been disappointed with the apparent shift in quality of the Post’s news reporting and its increasing emphasis on opinion, interpretation, and analysis. Also, its “clickbait” headlines in its digital edition are sometimes downright deceptive.

While I enjoy editorials I’ve increasingly been disappointed in what appears to me to be an attempt by the Post to be known more for comment and analysis than news. Plus, the intelligence and quality of some editorial columnists appear to be little better than what one sees in personal blogs. (I should know!) Given that I’m paying for the Post I find its waste of resources disappointing.

I’ve been consistently impressed with the New York Times’ coverage and with the quality of the comments its articles get. The Times’ comments are generally superior to what I see in the Post and that appears to be at least partly based on better moderation by the Times staff; perhaps the Post is over-reliant on automated comment screening?

I’ve been rethinking where I get my news — I rarely watch TV news — and have created a short list of web news sources I now try to check regularly (list updated Dec. 28, 2022; those marked with an asterisk * I check most frequently for news):

I’ve tried Fox News’ web site but they lag substantially in reporting any hard news that appears to reflect negatively on so-called “conservative” or right wing talking points. I’ve also checked out the Breitbart site in the past but dropped that given the frequent virulently racist and hateful comments that were tolerated there.

I am considering dropping* the paper edition of the Post. Articles printed in the paper edition are often at least a day old that I’ve already seen online. Also, the paper does accumulate and I’m sensitive to how much energy will be required to recycle it.

On the other hand, I do enjoy sitting down with the paper edition once or twice each day (I work out of my home office) and find that scanning the paper frequently reveals interesting articles I have not seen online. Plus, the paper edition of the Post does not publish the annoying and cheapening “Outbrain” advertising banners that show up online.

Usually I enjoy reading comments -- and commenting on -- news articles. These can be as informative as the news articles themselves in that they can provide alternative viewpoints or supplemental information.

At the same time, I’m increasingly convinced that one reason publications like the Post have so many uninformative or low quality comments is the publication’s tolerance for anonymous comments. Knowing someone’s affiliation or identity has always been helpful in my experience and I do believe that online anonymity does encourage a proliferation of spam and trolling.

Another annoying Washington Post practice: it does not allow comments on articles about religion.

I am told the reason for this is that comments on religion can become very insulting and nasty.

I find that argument silly given what the Post tolerates on its political commenting. Moreover, whether one is “religious” or not, you can’t argue that religion is not an important social force for either good or ill (or both).

The Post’s not allowing comments on religion reporting suggests to me that the Post is purposely consigning religion news to second class status.

* After decades of subscribing we cancelled our Washington Post subscription in December 2023. The Post’s unreliability as an objective news source combined with its deliberately misleading headlines finally got to be too much.

Copyright (c) 2021-2022 by Dennis D. McDonald

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