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I'm not surprised to see this coming from The New Yorker.

I've all but given up on quality journalism from most "newspapers," but long-form investigative articles from The New Yorker and Vanity Fair (yes, of all places!) always keep my faith in humanity. Less-lengthy but usually well-researched articles from Mother Jones and Harper's are also up there.

Other sources that sometimes do an awesome job but other days leave you scratching your head would be NPR, The Atlantic (less investigative journalism, but awesome write-ups), The New York Times (covering everything from tabloid trash to 20-page quality journalism spreads), and The Seattle Times (likewise, but less crappy and less awesome at both extremes).

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If you haven't already, check out The Economist. They have a strong, clear ideological bias, but the writing is excellent and it's one of the very few places to get any sort of news in English about parts of the world that The Times ignores.

I'm (usually) a fan, but I hesitated to group it with the others because it's rarely journalism and more often (usually deep and insightful) analysis of events.

If you just news on the parts of the world that American media ignores, a combination of BBC News and AlJazeera English is a good option.

I mostly think so as well, though poor quality of analysis in couple of areas I had direct experience with has made me doubt the quality of analysis of in other areas as well.

Once you notice how bad The Economist is in your particular area of expertise (whatever that may be), you realize that it's just Newsweek for people who don't want to admit they read Newsweek.

I thought this was the case, and bought an electronic subscription a year or so ago. As you say, good International coverage, but the writing was shockingly bad in many cases - technically incorrect and sloppy. I cancelled.

I sometimes feel that way about the science reporting. The other stuff is top-notch, IMO. Or do you mean like grammatically incorrect?

I have been a subscriber to the Economist for, woah, 11 years now. Simply by virtue of its weekly format, it does a good job of ignoring a lot of the interesting-but-transient stuff that wastes your time if you read regular news online. It also has great breadth of coverage -- it's easy to get parochial when you read online news, especially tech, and the E is a reminder that the rest of the world exists and that important things are happening in it.

However, the breadth seems to often come at the expense of depth -- on the occasional chances I get to discuss an article in the Economist with an actual expert in that field, it seems their analysis is often dismissed as superficial and they not-infrequently get basic facts wrong (their letters section often contains quite substantial corrections).

I generally read the Economist by means of their website, and its quite interesting to read the comments on articles; they usually fill in the gaps of the articles or point out errors (especially in the case of articles focused on a single country, which if flawed will bring out the nationals in force.)

The OP was praising Mother Jones for FSM's sake. I'm pretty sure he's fine with ideological biases.

>Vanity Fair (yes, of all places!)

Vanity Fair had Christopher Hitchens as a contributing editor for a long time.

I'd say that alone gives them some journalistic credibility.

Seriously. I'm always baffled by statements like, "Vanity Fair is actually really good!" Yes, they do good reporting. They also cover fashion and lifestyles very well too.

Claiming that fashion and entertainment don't matter is a meme amongst some people who long to be seen as intellectually superior.

Hitchens is the guy who claimed the Viet Cong/NLF never used car bombs, right? Saddam was working with AQ all along? And lots of other bullshit? No, he was a disgrace, and that rag's association with him does not reflect well on them.

claimed the Viet Cong/NLF never used car bombs, right?

No, that's not what he claimed. He claimed they didn't use car bombs "on American or any other foreign soil," which doesn't negate the use of such bombs on Vietnamese soil.

I don't have strong feelings for or against Hitchens, by the way.

Yup, Vanity Fair is a good magazine in spite of Chris Hitchens, not because of him.

Those two and the Atlantic is what I have subscriptions for right now. VF is kind of iffy, though. My wife and daughters make fun of me for having the subscription but every two or three issues there's something really good in the back. And it always smells good, if you have the paper subscription.

It is minor in comparison, but the writing is impeccable too. While the New York Times' copy-editing and style guide enforcement have been in free fall for decades, the New Yorker remains a great resource for well crafted standard written English. I often recommend it to friends who have English as a second language and are trying to improve their writing. I do warn them about the diaeresis though.

Mother Jones & ProPublica belong in that list, too.

The New York Review of Books is excellent too.

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