Apple News Service Said to Feature WSJ for $10 a month, Without NYT or WP (opens in new tab)

Leaving aside the comment about pricing, how do you consume more varied news than those "select few"? I read The Economist, NYT and WSJ every morning. Reading several articles (often on the same topic) across all three takes me about an hour. For a while I was trying to read Foreign Policy too but there's just not enough time.

I can only do this because I commute into the city on a relatively quiet train ride. I can't imagine adding another news source to this routine, let alone a bunch of them. What would you do, have a Monday set of sources, a Tuesday set and so on?

In fact, they can often afford a monthly bill where the total yearly cost is considerably more than they could afford up front.

Credit card companies make a lot of money off this difference.

Give me a break. The only true thing you said was that journalists need to be paid, and they're a massive expense.

If I would be willing to subscribe at the promotional price but not at the regular price, they have a sales process that is designed to capture and retain my subscription dollars by obfuscating the true price at the time of opt-in and making it hard to unsubscribe after I realize how much it actually costs. Neither of these seem great from the reader's perspective.

Take a look at the Wikipedia page covering The Economist's editorial stance[1]. In particular, note their presidential endorsements and their respective positions on climate change, drug decriminalization/legalization and American military action in Afghanistan and Iraq.

To drill into a specific example, consider that they've historically endorsed Democratic presidential candidates more often than not; on the other hand they endorsed George W. Bush in 2000 because they agreed with his, "small government, pro-market philosophy".

While they haven't done it in recent memory, they have in the past abstained from making any specific endorsement for a presidential candidate. More recently they haven't shied away from criticizing both candidates.[2]

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1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_editorial_stance

2. Here's a fun one: in 2004 The Economist very weakly (and sardonically) endorsed Kerry by saying, "The incompetent George W. Bush or the incoherent John Kerry." In contrast they gave two ringing endorsements for Obama.

Essentially, people are only willing to pay for "news" with which they are in accordance. Whether or not a particular news source is factually accurate, is very much a secondary concern. (Witness Bloomberg.) So you generally have two huge markets, one for "news" with a conservative bent, the other for "news" with a liberal bent.

Of course you have several markets, that are much smaller, for other types of "news". But very few markets where factual accuracy is at a premium. Add to that the fact that the few markets where factual accuracy is at a premium are small, and it's not hard to see why no one really caters to them. (All of that doesn't even consider the very real problem that it's hard to address such markets with a product that those markets would accept).

So pointing out the inaccuracies in Bloomberg, or CNN, or WSJ, or NY Times, etc misses the point. These media companies are in the business of selling "news". They don't put a priority on the business of selling accuracy because the business of accuracy doesn't really pay very well.

Think of it this way, you likely know a lot of people who consume, say, FOX or CNN, but how many people are you acquainted with who watch C-Span?