Anyone on the sift subscribe to Nat Geo? Is this issue as bad as it sounds?

Yuck.

Knew this was coming. Didn't know it would be this bad, so quickly.

Yes...and yes. The Mary story was story after story of faith healings and visions portrayed as if they were certainly real, with no science involved and no other explanations given. I had skipped that story because I don't care about religion, but went back just now and read most of it. Yuck.

The magazine is not the same. This months issue's articles....
1)the photo ARK
2) The crossing-is death an event or more of a progression
3)where death doesn't mean goodbye
4)urban parks, when you're there, civilization can feel very far away
5)Ghost Lands-The Out Of Eden Walk passes through nations haunted by their history: Armenia and Turkey
Page 4 is a big "Why I went looking for spiritual answers" 'article' hyping "Story of God" with Morgan Freeman, which has other full page ads in the same issue.
So every story has some religious connotation except the 'urban park' story, which may or may not, I haven't read it yet.
It does still have some good photography, but also a lot of bland and boring photography, and that ratio is moving in the wrong direction.
I think I won't be renewing. I'll get Popular Science or Scientific American again instead.

Holy crap. This reaction to *one* article could potentially be hyperbole.

But when that is the entire contents of an essentially random issue after the changeover... Yikes.

But most of all, this is just sad... My parents and grandparents both had Nat Geos dating back a LONG time when I was growing up, and I could pick random ones out of the stacks and read for hours. Incredible photos, and great articles on science, nature, sociology, etc. Essentially criminal to shit all over that tradition like this.

I used to subscribe and read NG back in the 80s. What about NG channel on TV? Did they get bad too?

Yes.
"Story of God" with Morgan Freeman is NGTV's big production this month.
Right now, it's border wars, followed by 4 episodes of rocky mountain law, then drain the Bermuda triangle (at least a little bit about nature), then area 51:the CIA's secret, then bigfoot:the new evidence. It's all low quality 'reality TV' and conspiracy theory these days. So sad.

Just like the other channels. [sighs] I miss the old days!

Sad and wait for it....so worth it.

Well, the upside being...National Geographic was such an excellent magazine that you really couldn't throw an issue away. You stuck it away in your ever growing library of National Geographic magazines. Then years later you have stacks and stacks of the magazine that you can't get rid of.

Now that problem is fixed.

As a religious person, I'm disgusted.
RIP NatGeo.

AND....you wonder why Donald Trump is a possible contender for President... Half of it is due to the type of people that watch the non-stop ultra-crap spoon fed to them on TV (while, as always, letting good shows die).

Maybe I'm not as concerned because when I was growing up the only reason to look at a NatGeo mag was to see some wank material.

So sad. I grew up on my father's subscription. And my mother's father had a collection from the beginning.