Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and GQ have really surprised me with the quality of their reporting over the past few years, in areas like national security where I would not have expected them to cover anything. They may have some liberal bias, but not ezcessively so; especially on a military embed, they are being fee information from "authorities", so if being biased but honest journalists makes them more questioning of statements by the military, I am ok with it. It is almost worse when an unthinkingly unquestioning local reporter shows up and just repeats the press releases.
Michael Yon is a great primary source, along with military personnel blogs, and especially freerangeinternational.com/blog/ but the major publications are doing a better job than tv or newspapers.
Vanity Fair has a very serious team of people doing long-form narrative journalism, having laid claim to much of the best talent from the late '90s-era Atlantic Monthly.
Unfortunately, the magazine itself is an unreadable mess of advertising and perfume samples.
I agree that Rolling Stone &c are printing some excellent reporting.
The reason, I suspect, is that they force their writers to be entertaining. Not only does this mean people read and appreciate the long-form articles (and thus build demand for more of them), but it forces the writers to properly get to grips with their subject.
A lot of self-consciously 'serious' investigative journalists put far too little emphasis on turning their research into an engaging story. I was talking to one last week, who seemed almost offended by the idea that he might use 'narrative tricks' to engage readers in his articles. He's won many awards, but little public attention -- and IMO it's precisely because he doesn't consider himself an entertainer.
Michael Yon is a great primary source, along with military personnel blogs, and especially freerangeinternational.com/blog/ but the major publications are doing a better job than tv or newspapers.