My solution was to subscribe to one reasonable newspaper (Washington Post). Between that, free BBC content, and NPR, I think I get a reasonable overview of world and local news.
But, that does mean I miss breaking investigative news from other sources. At least until it's picked up elsewhere or made available elsewhere. It's a bummer at time, but paying for a large subset of possible news sources would cost 10x+ what I pay now.
WaPo is the home of neocons Hugh Hewitt and Jennifer Rubin. When I first started reading WaPo, they were considered (and they considered themselves to be) far right neocons. These days, Ms. Rubin would be classified as a moderate (and considers herself to be an independent) and Mr. Hewitt is frequently accused of being a RINO. They haven't changed their political stances (if anything, Hewitt is more conservative now than he was before); it is simply that the Republican Party has moved extremely far to the right in the past decade and what was once considered extreme is now moderate.
Growing up, the family had the Washington Post and Economist, plus the nightly news on one of the major broadcast stations. Some people might also get the WSJ. I can't think of anybody I knew who got more than that.
The group who does pay for news, as I've alluded to, are people in the financial sector, or those who's knowledge of the news affects or is inherent to their job.
Business people, basically.
On a personal note, in high-school I competed on a team competition – Academic Decathlon – and my testing subject was Current Events. So I may be somewhat outside the norm.
I subscribe to the Financial Times, the Economist, WSJ, Bloomberg, and more.
My parents may have been more well off so this might not be representative, but it wasn't just papers; we also subscribed to several magazines. Growing up I remember we had:
* New York Times
* Wall Street Journal
* The Economist Magazine
* Time Magazine
* Nintendo Power
* Highlights for Children
I remember my Aunt subscribing to Vogue, Ebony and Reader's Digest, on top of the finance publications she and my dad were subscribed to. 30 years ago, Vice might have existed as a magazine, not a major publication.
The modern equivalent is sending someone a link, which won't work so well.
