Over the last couple of years I’ve noticed that I more and more enjoy reading long-form articles again compared to “just the news”. There is just something really special about an article about a single topic that looks at it at great detail and also shows it from multiple angles.
At the same time, I never wanted to get a newspaper subscription for two reasons: At least in Austria they are extremely expensive. A subscription of Der Standard is normally € 49.90 per month. It’s pretty much the same for Die Presse et al. The second reason is that I know that I would never get around reading everything. I’ve had a Wired subscription for many, many years now and back when I still received their print magazine, most issues ended up in my basement still covered in the shrink-wrap.
Even with the move to e-paper or dedicated applications (in the case of Wired) I still only get around to read a tiny fraction of what’s offered. Luckily, most magazines and newspapers now offer special online-only subscriptions where you simply get around the paywall for their website or just get the good feeling of supporting a medium that you really enjoy reading. This also allows me to read content from various sources. As of last month I subscribe to the following publications to get my fix of long-form journalism:
- Wired Magazine
- Der Standard (Austrian newspaper) to keep up to date with what’s going on in Austria
- Ars Technica for their day-to-day coverage of tech and science
- New York Times for their coverage of COVID-19 in the USA and also for their cooking and life-style section 😄
All of these are quite high quality and I simply want to help keeping them operational. Especially with the transition from print to digital pretty much every “classic” newspapers has struggled but some recognised the change early on. Der Standard and the New York Times are probably among the latter and having a subscription is simply a good way for me to say “Thank you” 🙂
At this point I’m pretty sure that I will also eventually subscribe to the German Die Zeit but for now I have enough to read every day! Do you also enjoy reading long-form? Do you also have some subscriptions?
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