Tbh the best newsites are paid. It sucks. I use archive to get around it, mostly. Free sites usually just rehash the paid site’s actual scoops, with less information, days later, and are cluttered with ads, or feel like lame a blog.
And when I had a free account, those NYT graphic based interactive publications and data visualizations were S tier. Whoever makes those is making the best technical web content around.
And their real time election coverage when the polls are closing - with the needle - is always the best way to see what’s really going on in terms of where the votes are outstanding, and what that means in terms of what the final number will be.