And it's the New Yorker that is frequently a culprit here. Too many articles talking about the journey the reporter went on to write their article. The low signal to noise ratio is a decent chunk of the reason I unsubscribed. Too few articles paid off.
They have a convention of prefacing articles with a category from their own taxonomy (“Personal History”, “Shouts and Mumurs”, “Reporter at Large”, “Talk of the town”, etc.) that signify the sort of article you’re going to get. In print this works well, as the heading is prominent, and each type occurs in a somewhat consistent order in the magazine, so you have a few clues you might be reading a type you dislike. I worry this hasn’t translated well to their online readership, and has contributed to a poorer reputation than they deserve.
