Use a Wall Street Journal Print Subscription for Market Developments
The Wall Street Journal print edition is, to my knowledge, the best way to keep up on financial news. Discovering that in today’s Internet-focused world was a big surprise.
The story of my path back to the newspaper, after many years away, is probably not what you would expect. Prior to this I relied on Yahoo Finance most of the time. The layout of headlines was simple and their content gave me necessary information. I changed to Yahoo years ago because it seemed logical to get news up to the minute, rather than the next day in print.
Marissa Mayer’s tenure as CEO has changed all that. To her credit she spruced up the user interface. This was overdue. But it is the only thing she got right. Marissa layered the content with so much advertising that you now have to hunt for real news amidst it. Poor decisions were also made with the Yahoo Finance smartphone application. Like their web site it was a little dated. But it was fairly intuitive and reliable. The new one looks nicer but is a step down in terms of usability.
As these changes were taking place my father offered me a Wall Street Journal subscription. He had a stockpile of frequent flier miles and this was one redemption option. The idea of getting home newspaper delivery seemed a little like buying a rotary dial phone. But being that I was looking to replace Yahoo Finance I accepted. Immediately things were better.
The biggest positive is getting away from the computer. We spend much of the day glued to electronic devices out of necessity. So reading the paper is a nice change. It is a chance to sit in a different posture. I am no longer staring at a bright, refreshing light source. Advertisements do not pop up when an article loads. Advertisements do not start automatic video playback when an article loads. Articles do not load slowly because the content host put twenty advertisements on one page. There is not a string of low quality comments below articles, where people often reduce themselves to cheap political attacks and name calling. It became apparent that the Internet is a fun house we all stepped into long ago. Without meaning to I had stepped out again and discovered a better world.
The quality of writing is also much higher. There are fewer typos and the coverage strikes me as more thorough. Many Internet articles seem like they have been rushed to meet demands of a rapid news cycle. The Journal is also written in a professional tone. On the Internet many things seem more geared for marketing and mass consumption. The only thing I do not like is their opinion pieces. Reading a fifteen paragraph article about how evil Hillary Clinton is does not add anything to my day. But these can be ignored.
My subscription came with access to wsj.com. Reading the paper is great for getting in depth coverage. But it is still important to check the Internet for breaking news. The only downside of wsj.com is a low level of comment moderation. Recently some guy posted several paragraphs on how Obama is the same as Hitler. The article was on a topic not even related to Obama. It was on a proposed corporate merger, or something like that, and comments of this nature are not uncommon. Obama this, invade Iran that, North Korea this, I want to pay zero taxes that. It would be nice if site administrators got a better handle on all that rhetoric.
The Wall Street Journal is not normally free of course. When my one year gift was up I was given a promotional price of $179 to renew. The second time I renewed it was $396. Prices change from year to year and promotion to promotion. But the customer service department tells me $396 is in range of their standard price. Given all these benefits it is a worthy expense. The flexibility of a print/digital combination has greatly improved both life and business.
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