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Is anyone in the publishing business reading this? If so, I've got a personal story to share.

I love cars. I'm a gearhead and I just love cars. I subscribe to several car magazines. Except I don't get Car & Driver anymore, and my subscription to Motor Trend is going to go unrenewed. Why?

In both cases, the car mags started running political commentary. If it were balanced, I wouldn't like it but wouldn't quit reading. But it's not balanced-- both mags express support for one side of the political spectrum, disdain for the other.

I can't justify paying for that. So I wrote (not for publication) notes to the editors, telling them I'd quit subscribing if they didn't stick to the proper wheelhouse. Neither editor replied. That's enough for me, I'm not going to pay for that kind of content.

I think ESPN has undergone a similar cycle. I believe their subscriber base is greatly diminished, yet they seem to continue on with a politicized agenda.

I just can't understand why the business owners allow this to continue. It seems counter-productive to me.

6 comments

Have experienced the same. Canceled subscriptions. Hell I use to ALWAYS watch ESPN. Now I never do. It’s sad because the product use to be so good. Now everyone in sports wants to be a politician and talk about the very stuff im watching espn to escape!

At least men's razors are still non-political /s

I'm surprised Car Magazines are getting involved in politics outside of say... car industry politics.

One thing I hate are the pricey opinion writers media likes to hire these days. In major publications these people can make $250,000/year (and up) to basically write partisan hot-takes that you can get for free on twitter.

You could hire 3-4 investigative journalists for the same price.

People in news have always been aware of their power to influence public opinions, they didn't just start wielding it today. What's happening is due to current political divide, there are now in-fighting among American news outlets, making their politicized agenda more obvious to average Americans.

People from countries vilified by American media have always been aware the politicized agendas.

I wholeheartedly recommend The Drive [1] and Alex Roy [2]. Both are biased. Towards a good driving experience :]

[1] https://twitter.com/thedrive

[2] https://twitter.com/alexroy144

Thanks for sharing those. I'll give them a look!

This is exactly what happened with the gaming media too. More and more political commentary, often biased heavily towards one side of the political spectrum and somewhat disdainful towards their customers.

Then again, I hear it's happened in many specialist fields recently, like entertainment journalism (music, TV, literature), sports journalism, etc. Constant political focus, agenda pushing, a general detachment from their audience.

And in every case, it's caused the publication to lose readers/subscribers because they don't want this political stuff. Suspect it's caused the growth of a fair few online publications too.

Not everything has to be a soapbox for political commentary.

I think the issue is basically this: In modern times, not even a car magazine can write articles without occasionally be forced to at least mention a politically charged issue, say, Trump. Today, with such very charged issues, if all you do is mention them without disavowing them, you are seemingly implicitly supporting them, and will be interpreted that way. And if if that’s how it’s going to be anyway, you might as well pick a side in order to appeal to the remaining side which buys your magazine.