Is there an affordable option for a print newspaper?

September 4, 2017 4:27 AM

I have a bad, bad addiction to the internet. I want to severely limit my time online, but I want to keep up with the news (global and local). A print newspaper seems like a good solution, but most of the subscriptions I'm seeing are very expensive.

My internet addiction is so bad that it's taken 40 minutes to start writing this question; as soon as I went to ask.metafilter.com, I started reading a bunch of stuff, and pretty soon I was watching movie clips and looking at other random stuff. Online-only subscriptions are not what I'm looking for right now, because even just opening my browser can lead to hours of wasted time. I want to look at print.

I've looked at subscriptions for the NY Times, the SF Chronicle, and the Guardian Weekly, but they're all about $250/year (or more). I looked at some similar questions, and I saw a couple recommendations for The Week, but I know nothing about them. Are there any other publications I should know about? Anything local to the Bay Area that's worth reading?

Some considerations stated in uncertain terms:
* Ideally, I'd like something that could keep me up to date on local Bay Area news, especially Oakland and the East Bay, but that's not a requirement.
* Are there any papers worth avoiding for their crummy reporting? I mean, I'm sure there are plenty, but I guess this applies especially to local stuff.
* Any papers worth avoiding for their crummy politics? My own politics are very far to the left, but I don't need a radical rag to be happy (my grandmother has been a communist since the 40s, and she's gotten all her news from the NY Times, even though she complains about them being hawks). That said, if someone says "oh yeah, the LA Times has taken a weird conservative slant in the last few years," that will probably convince me not to spend a money on a subscription.
* I don't have a hard budget, and to some degree I honestly think I can justify some expense relative to the hours and hours of lost time I deal with currently. Paying something like $4.81 a week for news isn't a bad deal. That said, it sure would be nice to go lower than $250/year.

I know print journalism isn't doing so great. It sort of feels like I'm trying to invest in glacier futures. I'm not expecting print media to solve all my problems overnight, but I need to start spending far less time on the internet before I ruin my life. Also, I like crosswords.

posted by shapes that haunt the dusk to Media & Arts (19 answers total)

I got a subscription to the Atlantic for $10 a year. Similarly, never pa full price for a Nytimes subscription. You should be able to find some discount code to mention and then call in to place your order rather than doing it online.
posted by raccoon409 at 4:44 AM on September 4, 2017

I know nothing about the publication, but from a cost perspective USA Today is running a summer sale. Ordinarily $225/year, you can get it for $180/year (most likely paid up front) from this link or call 1-866-602-0746, and ask for offer WPSGE
posted by rakaidan at 4:48 AM on September 4, 2017

Best answer: Have you ever subscribed to a daily paper before? It's nice. You'll probably like it. They deliver a novel's worth of words fresh every day by 6 a.m. If I were you I'd give the Chronicle a try and see how you like it. It's a good paper, you'll probably enjoy the local section, they do well-regarded local reporting.

Traditionally, the cost of a local paper is somewhat offset by good local coupons in the Sunday paper as well as letting you know about cool free events/good sales/etc., but I have no idea how the Chronicle is on coupons (nor how likely you are to use them).
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:57 AM on September 4, 2017

Best answer: The East Bay Express does excellent local reporting; for this side of the Bay it's the best you'll get in print. For muckraking politics, I'd see if Tim Redmond--former editor of the SF Bay Guardian and now-editor of 48 Hills--is doing anything in print (though I suspect not, yet).
posted by tapir-whorf at 5:02 AM on September 4, 2017

Best answer: I think it is unlikely to find a daily newspaper with quality reporting for less than ~$200/year. Aside from you price requirement, the SF Chronicle hits all your requirements: quality, left-leaning reporting and an entire East Bay section (if you get it in the East Bay). If I were you, I'd look for a coupon to lower the cost of the Chronicle rather than looking for a cut-rate option that won't fulfill your other requirements.
posted by Betelgeuse at 5:03 AM on September 4, 2017 [7 favorites]

Best answer: Support a newspaper that does good journalism and isn't awful. Please stay away from Gannett owned newspapers which includes the USA Today. They have a habit of buying up many locals and literally destroying them. The NYT offers specials for new subscribers as do most newspapers.
posted by JJ86 at 5:53 AM on September 4, 2017 [6 favorites]

Best answer: The Week is great. It's a mashup of the past week's news from a variety of international sources and they name all the articles they're referencing (X in the WaPo said this, Y in the Guardian said that) in case you want to follow up with the original. There's also some arts coverage, an "only in America" weird news corner, and a centerfold of mansion listings to drool over.

Does your local paper offer any partner subscriptions? My Mpls Star Tribune subscription came with six months of free access to the entire Washington Post website, so I get local news plus all the political coverage I can stomach plus twice the crossword puzzles.
posted by Flannery Culp at 6:38 AM on September 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I have seen some ridiculously cheap offers for my local paper on Groupon. Worth checking.
posted by primethyme at 7:20 AM on September 4, 2017

The Economist tends to run some very inexpensive introductory offers (e.g. currently $12 for 12 weeks). It's been years since I've subscribed so I'm not sure what sort of follow-on offers might exist. Go to a good news stand or bookstore that carries periodicals and see what the subscription cards in side might get you.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 8:56 AM on September 4, 2017

If you have a .edu email address (or can otherwise be verified as an employee of an educational or research organization) subscriptions to the NYT are half off (including print) and digital subscriptions to the Washington Post are free. Source: my wife's .edu email address and our Friday-Sunday NYT delivery. The Post has some sort of delivery discount too, but they're somehow worse at delivering all the parts of the physical paper (to our address in Washington) than the NYT is, and they have worse customer service when delivery is messed up, which was often.
posted by fedward at 9:00 AM on September 4, 2017

Best answer: I'm paying 99c a week for print delivery of the Sunday Chronicle, and I don't know how I got that special deal, but I'm sure you could call up and ask. I'm not going with daily delivery because I'm really busy with work and other things, but you do get full digital access as a subscriber, so I look at it a fair bit during the week.

That plus the Economist might be a good start, although the Chron is a lot smaller than it used to be -- like most newspapers -- and a lot of the news coverage is from AP wire, NYT, or the WaPo.

I used to love the San Jose Mercury News for better Bay Area coverage, but I'm not sure how it is these days.
posted by vickyverky at 10:15 AM on September 4, 2017

The Economist and The Atlantic are good and you can sometimes find deals; we buy ours from Magazineline and receive substantial savings. Usually all the newspapers and magazines have subscription sales, so I tend to wait for those and never pay full price.
posted by bessiemae at 10:37 AM on September 4, 2017

Best answer: Maybe the San Francisco Business Times? It's about $100/year. I subscribe to its sister publication in Denver and get a lot out of it.

One easy way to find out which print publications you'd enjoy enough to pay for would be to stop by your local library and see them in person. Keep visiting and reading until you're willing to pay for the convenience of reading the latest issue at home (and it's not as though you ever have to be!)
posted by asperity at 10:46 AM on September 4, 2017

Get an e-ink Kindle (i.e. a black & white one), and you can buy newspapers one at a time from the device. I think you'll be very unlikely to start browsing the web on it, either.
posted by ambrosen at 1:42 PM on September 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

$250 a year isn't a bad price at all for a daily paper. Journalism ain't cheap, and everybody's looking at ads on the web nowadays.
posted by lhauser at 3:41 PM on September 4, 2017

Response by poster: Thanks, everyone! I may end up going with the SF Chronicle. They have a Labor Day/week sale until next week (it's currently $99 for 26 weeks), and they'll give you a prorated refund if you decide to cancel.

As a follow up, though, I have to ask a dumb question: how do newspapers deliver if you live in an apartment building? I have this fear that it's going to get stolen from my front step.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 6:14 PM on September 4, 2017

Best answer: Depends on the building -- they might drop it with the doorman, or deliver them all to the front of the building, or deliver them inside the building. If you don't have an active building management that knows, you may be able to ask the Chronicle and they'll get back to you after checking with your route's delivery person.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:39 PM on September 4, 2017

Response by poster: OK, I looked into subscribing to the SF Chronicle, and their sale rate is only good for six months. They're offering 26 weeks for $99, but you have to sign up for their automatic renewal, and you lose the discount after 26 weeks. The normal yearly subscription rate is about $700/year. Six months is better than nothing, but it's also not accurate to say a subscription is $200/year.

NY Times advertises discount subscriptions "starting at" $4.50 per week, and student rates (which I'm eligible for) of 50% off -- but because I'm in California, it's actually $9.75 per week for daily delivery, or $4.75/week for the Sunday edition, and no student discounts are available here.

The San Jose Mercury News apparently has a horrible billing department.

Anyway, just wanted to follow up that apparently nothing is as cheap as I initially thought it was. I guess I can get the six month subscription, but this may not really work out long term.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 6:18 PM on September 6, 2017

What about subscribing to the Sunday NYT and maybe Wednesday? As far as I remember they let you pick a subset of the subscription days for cheaper.
posted by cnidaria at 12:33 PM on December 8, 2017