Poll: Best Print News Sources/ Reading Materials

Bloomberg Markets The Economist FT WSJ Harvard Business Review

The Deal - maybe, not too familiar McKinsey - no experience, I am sure it is good

NYT - Puke

I read NYT for Dealbook (I think it is only online). I also read random NYT articles posted on twitter or on WSO.

To be honest, the Journal sucks now, IMO. I used to read it a lot but I feel it is now on the same level as NYT and USA Today lol.

I get HBR both in print and online and I really enjoy it. It is not finance related at all but its great to see what is going in terms of management theory, business trends, etc.

FT and Bloomberg Markets are great. I really enjoy both of these.

I also get Bloomberg Businessweek and Fortune for free from an organization I am a part of, and I do not enjoy these as much. I find it is too little value-added information, too late after a news story has occurred.

I also like Foreign Policy. I read it online right now, but I plan on getting a subscription to this and to the Economist as well. FP may be a little left-of-centre for some people, but I do enjoy reading through it.

If I had to rank them:

FT Bloomberg Markets HBR

FP

Bloomberg Businessweek/Fortune

Ladies Home Journal

WSJ/NYT/USA Today

foreign affairs every now and then has good economics related essays

NY Times - bird cage flooring material Bloomberg Markets - paper weight. BW is much better/current if you like BBG stuff Financial Times - top of the line fantastic Wall Street Journal - good-ish, in depth, more so than FT The Economist - random subjects. good to sound smart and worldly at cocktail Harvard Business Review - pretty good McKinsey Quarterly - no idea? The Deal - no idea?

Washington post has very good political economics stuff.

the following suggestion isn't mainstream, or media for that matter, but good/relevant idea material, etc: go to fed reserve/regional fed web pages and look at their working papers/research. SF fed letters and NYFRB especially.

FT uber alles (in Europe at least, this is indisputable)

Bloomberg markets looks useless. Cute (in pejorative sense) functions in prime view.

The Economist: I like. A lot of the news are repetitions of news you have already seen, but also news you have missed and the analyses are good.

Wall Street Journal and NYT: too biased for my liking. In europe, the WSJ doesn't even have the must-read status, so I just skip it.

HBR&McKinsey Quarterly: good, although I mostly read pieces about long term trends.

• i'm not sure you can compare magazines with newspapers
• I'd add MarketWatch
• i'm surprised that some of you unequivocally say you like ft better than wsj. i always consider them somewhat on par. i pick based on op-eds. there's only. there is only one from each that i read regularly. neither are fantastic but i think wsj is only marginally better in this respect.
• economist is very different from bloomberg markets. i prefer the latter mainly cos of personal interest and not quality of writing (more on business, less on politics), although i think my tastes might be changing
• don't forget mad magazine. that's right up there

Well, to start with, there's just the fact that I live in Europe, and FT has an european focus just as much as WSJ has an american focus. (but both of them offer coverage of global issues). Can't change that.

At the end, though, FT wins because of balance, consistency and style.

balance&consistency: WSJ is right-leaning and FT is conservative leaning. However the FT has regular contributors of high value and often puts pieces with contrasting views on the same page. Meanwhile, on the WSJ sometimes I see GREAT contributions, other times I see mad rants which just spoil my reading.

style: Let's face it, there's a elitist undercurrent in the FT which they don't even try too hard to hide. They mix up real world expertise with theories in business and politics, which makes it a stimulating read. The WSJ instead tends to pander and dumb it down. I know that I am generalizing, but that's just the feeling I get.