I always struggle with what sources I should be reading for news (particularly political news). I don’t want to read only sources that I agree with, but I also struggle finding news sources that aren’t sensationalist and put forward varied view points. Here are a few of the places I frequent (criticism of these sources or other recommendations are welcome.) I don’t think my political news sources are well varied so any recommendations there would be great as well.
- hackernews
- arstechnica
- the economist
- axios
- MIT News
- Wired
The Economist is a Neoliberal rag. Might I suggest reading Le Monde Diplomatique English edition instead? www.mondediplo.com - It’s the same style as The Economist but it doesn’t promote Neoliberal policies or coup d’etats.
thanks for the recommendation. I will give it a shot.
I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the quality of the content.
Also in podcast version for those interested. Honestly it’s been noce sometimes to read those longform stuff. To often we just get news flashes and difficulty to have a broader point of view. I would recommend ready this sort of stuff especially when younger to get a better understanding of your own political opinions sometimes.
Also in podcast version for those interested. Honestly it’s been noce sometimes to read those longform stuff. To often we just get news flashes and difficulty to have a broader point of view. I would recommend ready this sort of stuff especially when younger to get a better understanding of your own political opinions sometimes.
Also in podcast version for those interested. Honestly it’s been noce sometimes to read those longform stuff. To often we just get news flashes and difficulty to have a broader point of view. I would recommend ready this sort of stuff especially when younger to get a better understanding of your own political opinions sometimes.
Also in podcast version for those interested. Honestly it’s been noce sometimes to read those longform stuff. To often we just get news flashes and difficulty to have a broader point of view. I would recommend ready this sort of stuff especially when younger to get a better understanding of your own political opinions sometimes.
Keeping it limited to English language news sites:
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teleSUR News from Venezuela, gives a very different perspective and reports many news from the global south, which are simply ignored in western media.
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Ruptly If there are protests anywhere in the world, they will have videos.
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Global Times From China, which will be the biggest economy in a few years. So even if you dont agree with them, its good to know what they are doing, and why.
What are you thoughts on whistle blowing sites like WikiLeaks?
Also, SCMP?
What are you thoughts on whistle blowing sites like WikiLeaks?
Is it worth reading wikileaks directly? I see now that they have regular posts on their site, but I never read those before.
Also, SCMP?
I read it sometimes when it gets linked, but their political views are too pro-capitalist for me.
this article made me wanna hurl.
they almost make it sound like a bad thing. Good satire.
Didn’t know about Ruptly. Thank you for recommending it.
Didn’t know about Ruptly. Thank you for recommending it.
So even if you dont agree with them
I mean, they’re a state run media, it’s a deceptive propaganda machine that honest people should find themselves disagreeing with, they’re only useful for knowing what the CCP is doing, and maybe getting a glimpse at why, but usually, the “why” is a lie.
I’d trust them as much as I trust Fox News to give me the truth.
Sounds to me like you made up your opinion without reading a single article of theirs.
I made up my opinion after they pushed a narrative in the face of reality time and time again. Like the endless “articles” claiming their forced labor camps are a lie, and their utilization in pushing false calm to the world about covid in the early days.
They are a state run organization under the control of a totalitarian regime who only pretends to be communist, their “articles” reflect that. As I said, they’re only useful in seeing where the wind is blowing.
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My absolute favorites to follow are:
The Grayzone - it’s Max Blumenthal’s analysis.
Moon of Alabama - one guy’s perspectives on what to look out for
The Canary - for the UK perspective on its involvement in the world’s affairs.
Unlimited Hangout - a more analytical take on long-term established players.
MintPress News - more about the West’s influence in far-away regions.
And for technology:
Techdirt - Crazy legal proceedings, frivolous lawsuits… at times both sad, and very much hilarious.
Nice recommendations, I hadn’t heard of some of these.
I use literally hundreds of sources for my news. Whenever I come across a new news source, I always see what Media Bias Factcheck has to say about them, and base my decision to rely on them accordingly.
I would be quite sceptical of a site that lists US state media as “least biased”. And their definition of left/right are clearly in a US context as well (liberal vs conservative).
Any alternative sources that you would recommend?
Use your own brain ;)
I am…I am seeking out recommendations that might be outside of my current media bubble so that I can read more “broadly” and form my own opinions – which seems like using my brain to me :) The point of this thread is to hear what others find useful and what others are reading. Though, I take your point that you shouldn’t just blindly read what others read.
I was specifically referring to that above website that categorizes news sites in this rather simplified and potentially biased way. While the idea is not necessarily bad, it does seem a bit like outsourcing your brain to someone else ;)
@poVoq@lemmy.ml I miss understood your original comment. Thanks for the clarification. I agree , you should think critically about everything you read. I do think there is utility in hearing suggestions from others and viewing aggregations of sources – as long as you come in with a healthy degree of skepticism and try not to be intellectually lazy.
how would my brain know who to trust? it even forgets what I wanted to do after I come back from taking a shit.
awesome, I’ve not seen this site before. Being able to filter by political spectrum is cool – I will definitely add some of these to my rss feed.
NPR certainly has a pro-US tilt in its reporting, but I still think that it’s one of the least sensationalist and biased outlets in the US. Plus the podcasts and local reporting pieces are usually pretty good.
I subscribe to a number of mainstream and not-so-mainstream news sources. You can usually triangulate where the truth lies with a variety of sources and knowledge of their biases and leanings. Of course, I’m a dirty commie.
As for traditional media news sources: a good idea is to look for ones not targeted at you specifically as you will be able to notice the propaganda parts more easily (or they are irrelevant to you)*. Usually that means looking for foreign news sources from relatively neutral places (Switzerland, Singapur, Japan etc.). English language versions of those have to be taken with a grain of salt again of course, but often they are just translations.
Reading news coverage of your own country from a foreign news outlet can be a real eye-opener on just how much the local media tries to shape mainstream opinion instead of just reporting on news.
*No one is immune to propaganda, and the best propaganda is the one that you don’t even notice.
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Thanks, this suggestion seems very practical. I will give this a shot.
Here’s a good discussion on why you should vary your news sources along with some charts to show how sources vary and specific examples given. Maybe you can find what you’re looking for in there.
My main news sources are primarily NY Times, npr and a local city paper.
It’s not a particularly varied list but I reached a point during the pandemic where I just couldn’t handle the firehose of low effort journalism doom and gloom anymore. Opted to choose a couple of quality, relatively neutral sources and cut out the reddit feed. Npr is left leaning in their content and nytimes feels slightly left leaning on their journalism pieces, but based on the political op-ed writeups on the front page that I rarely read it looks right leaning
Initially I paid for a nytimes subscription until I found that I could get a library card from a sort of nearby large city in my state through a statewide reciprocal library card program, at which point I found that better funded library offers a free subscription to the nytimes to any cardholder, so that’s how I get access now. I find their higher quality of journalism to be like a breath of fresh air after getting hot boxed every day from the low effort shit that reddit fed us
Read as diverse a portfolio of news sources as possible and use your critical thinking. Also, read news that’s local to where something is happening: if you want news on China, read at least some articles from a Chinese news outlet, even if you have to use machine translation.
It’s not easy though, and personally I also struggle with this.
I try to stay away from the news pretty much as much as possible, but during the American election I wanted to see some varied opinions and included tildes.net which sometimes had some disagreeable right-leaning commentary as well as slashdot. Otherwise, I have a BBC rss feed that gives me a sense of what’s going on without actually reading the content. My more well-informed sister watches Bloomberg Global in the morning with breakfast.
Back in the day, I used to follow a bunch of old bond-traders on twitter who were skeptical as hell and gave a good follow the money view on current events. Also, on reddit I used to follow the military subs to get that perspective.
I use traditional mainstream news sources. I don’t subscribe to the ridiculous way of thinking with this “fake news” mindset that has swept social media. Yes journalists can have biases but that’s fine when taken into consideration. Quite frankly that mindset nothing but a way to polarize the population.
Have you heard anything in the news about the 5 OPCW whistleblowers reporting that the US justification for bombing Syria 2 years ago was a false flag operation? Or that the US blocked OPCW testimony at the UN Security Council about the matter?
No, I don’t follow what’s going on in Syria.
Is this the part where I’m supposed to do my own research and then stumble upon extremist literature and then become woke.
Lol no of course not. I just wanted to understand who you are and now I know. I don’t really care about ignorant americans they’re quickly becoming irrelevant.
You also may want to check out TASS, which is a newswire service and doesn’t provide value added “analysis” (read: propaganda). Euronews is also an aggregator for many European news sources.
It’s not daily news but The Grayzone is also pretty good.
For me I use bazqux reader and add all the RSS feeds of news sources, you’d be surprised at how many are the exact same headline all from the AP.
Isn’t TASS Russian state media?
Yes, it’s the fourth largest news agency in the world behind AP, Reuters, and AFP.
I primarily read New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Occasionally, I will read The Economist, but I see someone in this thread is heavily opposed to that. I try to expand my readings with other sources but I haven’t gotten hooked on any others yet.
I have a hard time believing I am being that misled by these sources as I don’t read any op-eds and seek more information from other sources for stories I read the most into.
