There still are such news sources -- The Economist, Reuters, AP, etc., rarely editorialize their articles. Most other mainstream news sources like NYT, WSJ, etc., are just as clickbaity and cater to a specific demographic of the society just like Substack writers do. So I don't see it as a loss for journalism if people stopped subscribing to, say The Guardian, and instead supported a Substack writer.
The Economist doesn't interview anybody, doesn't cultivate any sources, or ever break any stories. It mostly reads like recent university graduates cosplaying William F Buckley.
Perhaps it just 'feels' like it doesn't editorialize because their writers are all nameless and faceless and share the same ideology, so there is never a difference of opinion. Problem with the economy/society/military? Just deregulate and privatize!
What? The Economist is almost entirely editorials. The only difference between it and other editorial-only publications like Foreign Affairs is that the authors' names are deliberately removed to give the paper a sense of speaking with "one collective voice". Every article subheading is an opinion, and ends with a paragraph firmly staking out a position. The writing may be eloquent, and the graphs pretty, but the result is a publication that heavily editorializes, while lacking any debate or diversity of thought.
Examples from current issue:
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/03/20/bidens-muddle-o...
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/03/18/how-europes-vac...
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/09/03/...
And I agree, less opinion is good, especially in the once-reputable legacy mainstream media like the paper of the record, the NYT, which pushed the trump-hater Michael Steele 'pee tape' rumor (and the idea that Trump did not explicitly condemn white supremacy ) amongst others.
> As I said on -- remember this -- Saturday, we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence.
> And you had people, and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-charlottesv...
If NYT claimed that he didn't, it's anything but "best possible info". You're not immune to propaganda or misinformation just because you happen to be against Trump.
Imho. US media needs an injection of more common sense through properly contextualized facts - and the human experience of the writer is a big part of this.
What's new is that rockstar opinion writers with enough name recognition are able to generate clickbait targeted for their specific followers and make a living in doing so, rather than relying on the opinion sections of major publications. So now i guess the established troll farms like the NYT or WSJ editorial pages are the clickbait minor leagues while Substack is the majors.
This doesn't seem to be any better, really.
Back in the 2000s, 'blogs' were all the rage. It was where 'real journalism' happened, away from the red tape and PC-ness of newsrooms. Sound familiar? 15 years later, somebody like Andrew Sullivan or Breibart are the only 'bloggers' people even remember.
On the other hand, the employees engaged in PC warfare on corporate slack channels, or the social media mobs annoying advertisers, are mostly not the elites. In another framing you would call them populists.
The vanishingly small minority of Substack writers who are media stars, and who are rich and powerful, yes. That's not true of the overwhelming majority of Substack writers. Also, even the handful of media stars has traditionally been utterly powerless in comparison to our corporate media.
What power, eg, Greenwald may have pales utterly in comparison to the power of a media conglomerate.
> On the other hand, the employees engaged in PC warfare on corporate slack channels [...] In another framing you would call them populists.
Culturally, they would probably be the first to view themselves as part of the elite. And as for being populists, that would seem to require them to be pursuing policies which are popular.
The "elite" framing may bother you, but I don't think it can be easily refuted either.
The majority, then, are writers who can't get a job in paid media - either because they're not good enough, or there aren't enough paid slots available to accommodate them.
IOW, Substack is the 2020s version of Blogger, except that it has a payment/compensation system built in.
As with "content producers" on YouTube, "influencers" on InstaGram, etc, there is vastly more supply than there is demand or available compensation.
I'm not saying that there aren't good, original voices on Substack. I'm saying that the vast majority of writers on the platform are categorically similar to, and subject to the same system constraints as, other media/attention platforms.