Mother Jones Magazine

Lifelong subscriber. I'll get my own bias out of the way: a neighbor bought my parents a gift subscription when I was a kid, so I've read Mother Jones my entire life. Like our neighbor, I love introducing this magazine to new readers.

Do they have an editorial position? Yes. Does that get in the way of fearless investigative journalism? Never.

Check out the website if you're unsure. I recommend any of Kevin Drum's political reportingâ??he wrote about Christopher Steele and Russia before the 2016 election; the 2017 story on prisons, which won a national magazine award; or a particularly gutting piece about the health problems faced by the mostly undocumented workers at a Hormel-owned slaughterhouse.

Although the magazine tackles heavy issues, I never find it piling up like the New Yorker, since it comes out every other month, and is relatively slim. I usually read it in an afternoon, and the type is large enough to read on the train and at the gym. The graphic design and layout is exceptional, especially in a current events magazine, and worth mentioning, even if it's not something you normally notice or care about.

P.S. If you don't know who the magazine's namesake, Mary "Mother" Jones was, she was a labor activist at the turn of the 20th century, and is absolutely worth a Wikipedia trip. Her family was killed by a fire during a mining dispute, and she dedicated the rest of her life to social justice and ending child labor. She even brought a trainload of child laborers to congress to testify.