SARAH BUITENDACH: Where to find the best global news, right now
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Every morning, I roll over in bed, grab my phone, check my horror show of an inbox, read a couple of morning mailers like this one, and then open the New York Times app. I do their Spelling Bee, and then read about all kinds of things I didn’t know I wanted to read but am glad I have.
Like this piece ( on why 100 years ago, black American singer Mamie Smith’s song Crazy Blues shook things up. Or about how ( Thailand’s students are taking on the military, borrowing from Harry Potter. Sometimes I even wade into their mostly critical commentary of Trump.
Whether or not you agree with their political stance, you’d be hard-pressed to find a news brand that’s more impressive — never mind a print product that’s migrated to online with such success. The digital subscribers are the proof. There are now more than 6-million of them. As with many media brands, their advertising revenue fell off a cliff when Covid-19 arrived, but those millions of paying customers sure helped to mitigate the fallout.
Interestingly, whilst the mass of us fans get our fix online for $0.47 per week, the New York Times still make the majority of its cash from print subscribers. All 840,000 of them. Read this piece ( from Harvard’s media-focused Nieman Lab for the deep dive into the current state of the NYT.
Print or digital, they are the proof that we’ll pay for quality and a simple, good experience. I have definitely drunk the New York Times Kool-aid. But, I also subscribe to a lot of other news outlets, and so here, is my very small precis of what else is on offer, worth paying for.
Of the other State-side offerings, The Wall Street Journal ( has a great summer deal on at the moment (€1 for two months and then it goes up to €10 a month after that). They’re doing some interesting journalism, like this story ( on Amazon taking over mall space in the US.The Washington Post ( website is better than the app and the whole thing costs me $10 every few weeks. It’s a very US-centric, but interesting nevertheless.Then, of course, there’s The New Yorker ( — which will set you back $50 a year. If you’ve ever subscribed to the iconic magazine, you’ll know that you’re committing to a whole lot of reading with ...
Like this piece ( on why 100 years ago, black American singer Mamie Smith’s song Crazy Blues shook things up. Or about how ( Thailand’s students are taking on the military, borrowing from Harry Potter. Sometimes I even wade into their mostly critical commentary of Trump.
Whether or not you agree with their political stance, you’d be hard-pressed to find a news brand that’s more impressive — never mind a print product that’s migrated to online with such success. The digital subscribers are the proof. There are now more than 6-million of them. As with many media brands, their advertising revenue fell off a cliff when Covid-19 arrived, but those millions of paying customers sure helped to mitigate the fallout.
Interestingly, whilst the mass of us fans get our fix online for $0.47 per week, the New York Times still make the majority of its cash from print subscribers. All 840,000 of them. Read this piece ( from Harvard’s media-focused Nieman Lab for the deep dive into the current state of the NYT.
Print or digital, they are the proof that we’ll pay for quality and a simple, good experience. I have definitely drunk the New York Times Kool-aid. But, I also subscribe to a lot of other news outlets, and so here, is my very small precis of what else is on offer, worth paying for.
Of the other State-side offerings, The Wall Street Journal ( has a great summer deal on at the moment (€1 for two months and then it goes up to €10 a month after that). They’re doing some interesting journalism, like this story ( on Amazon taking over mall space in the US.The Washington Post ( website is better than the app and the whole thing costs me $10 every few weeks. It’s a very US-centric, but interesting nevertheless.Then, of course, there’s The New Yorker ( — which will set you back $50 a year. If you’ve ever subscribed to the iconic magazine, you’ll know that you’re committing to a whole lot of reading with ...
