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!
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:
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.
New Yorker. Scientific American.
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?”
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.
Man there was nothing better than finding an abandoned skin magazine in the ‘90’s.
Especially when all the pages weren’t stuck together.
I was telling my kid about woods porn. Which we found a lot as kids. Peoples stash in a bag somewhere in the woods. They seemed to be everywhere. God I’m old…
Back in 2003, me and my friend took a break from band practice.
He said he had a porn collection so off we went through the woods behind his house. After a while we get to this one tree and there’s a shovel behind it.
We go back to his house, on the other side is a river. He starts digging in the river back until he pulls out a buried plastic bag. And he just looks horrified when he looks in.
All the magazines are rotten and broken apart by water.
I don’t know what he was expecting to happen. Or why he hid the shovel in the woods. The whole time I was so confused.
We geenup in a very Catholic place that was very poor.I think ours were form men hiding it from families. They didn’t have shops or mancaves or whatever they had the woods.
I like The Guardian Weekly for full international coverage.
The Atlantic
The beating heart of zombie neoliberalism and The Worst Magazine In America.
