I just realized my library card gives me access to an app I can borrow magazines from. And as someone trying to do less Lemmy scrolling at night and more long form reading, I’m wondering where to start.
I generally like politics, philosophy, interesting facts, history, social issues.
Also, I’m not American if that matters.
What’s your favorite magazines!
Harper’s Magazine (not to be confused with Harper’s Bazaar). https://harpers.org/ There’s Granta for mostly long-form fiction. A quarterly. It’s excellent but more like a periodic paperback book than a magazine.
Skeptical Enquirer
One that hasn’t been mentioned in the comments so far: https://www.nplusonemag.com/
Also not magazines, but two excellent contemporary communist journals:
New Yorker. Scientific American.
Brooklyn Rail, mainly an arts magazine but they have a great politics section, Field Notes, from which books like Hinterland by Phil A. Neel have been published.
Current Affairs - Useful for keeping up with Doctor Who and his amazing adventures.
The Economist. They’re big on free markets and open democracy. So they’re pretty much smack dab in the middle for political bias (i consider then ‘soft’ neoliberalism. Still neoliberalism but at least they still respect that there is a human price that needs to be considered). They’re recognised for reliable, factual reporting and analysis (as long as you keep in mind their analysis is coached per their belief in free markets/open democracies as the superior model). But in terms of factuality and having journalists on the ground actually interviewing primary sources, they’re great. https://adfontesmedia.com/the-economist-bias-and-reliability/
They’re big on free markets and open democracy.
They’re not big on either of those things. They’re big on bourgeois interests, which are economic & political oligarchy and imperialism. Lenin called it, “a journal which speaks for British millionaires,” and now it speaks for the Global North’s billionaires.
I try to point people toward developing real media literacy.
I’ll politely agree to disagree. I’ve seen The Economist labeled as neoliberalist, but my personal opinion is that they tend to push more for centrism and social democracies in the articles and podcasts i’ve consumed.
If OP has access to these magazines, it doesn’t hurt for them to check it out for themselves.
Now in terms of media literacy, i’ll throw this into the ring. When reading an article, we should categorise what we read into the following. Verifiable Fact (ie, it is possible to obtain primary evidence that it had happened), Opinion (Someone’s interpretation of a piece of information in context of their own bias or goals), or Fabrication (Generalisation, unverifiable evidence, No True Scotsman arguments, etc).
I tried to call out the bias that The Economist has for OP, but it doesn’t change that their ‘Factual Reporting’ is high. You may not agree with their Opinion of what the facts mean. But it doesn’t change factuality if it is verifiable. Given OP’s interests “politics, philosophy, interesting facts, history, social issues.” I maintain that The Economist is among the most well written magazines that provide what he/she is looking for.
And on the note of bias, i’ll ask. “Is Lenin’s opinion of a Western magazine in context of UK inaction in WW1 following Germany’s invasion of Serbia really the most unbiased evaluation, nor is it even a relevant evaluation given that it was made over a hundred years ago?”
The Atlantic
The beating heart of zombie neoliberalism and The Worst Magazine In America.
Playboy in the 90’s actually did have good articles.
They had many points
What would the articles be about? I think there’s some options to see previous issues in there, not sure if it goes back that far though.
https://www.angelfire.com/me3/cryin/playboy95.html
First one I could find that didn’t give me a 404 error.
Pretty much every category you said you like articles from! If I get some downtime at work I’ll see if I can send you an example or 2.
I like The Guardian Weekly for full international coverage.
