I try to avoid it. It's too much of a time sink and there's almost zero pieces of actionable information.
I know it's offensive to claim it's merely entertainment but in concrete terms there's no material difference resulting from tuning into daily banter that's any different than watching some serial drama on television.
The problem is that online news sources are (almost) all the same - low budget, second tier silos of mostly trainee journalists. They have an emphasis on clicks and outrage and constant updates to keep you engaged and are a secondary (or tertiary) driver of revenue. The only exception I know of are The New York Times and maybe The Intercept.
My tip is to read a (or more) actual (read: printed) newspapers:
- they are printed daily or weekly (e.g. The Economist), keeping you out of the "Breaking News" loop every 60 minutes; - they have more weight within the news organization because they are the primary driver of revenue; - are therefore written by actual professional journalists in a proper journalistic process.
I recommend just picking up any news paper and comparing that to the online presence of that news paper, you will notice the tremendous difference.
In my opinion, a lot of the "media mistrust" comes from the constant barrage of so-called "news" articles with the primary goal of being shared on social media and bubbling up in Google News. Just check how many news articles are 1:1 copies of AP or any other news conglomerate.
99 comments in "Ask HN: What are your other favorite communities other than Hacker News?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20023209
The BBC has a wide range of podcasts (available internationally), including ones about geopolitics and science.
Due to the nature of the medium and the BBC's generally more serious and composed disposition these podcasts tend to be about actually relevant information rather than the outrage-inducing, largely irrelevant rubbish commonly fed by "Now ... this" media.
Spanish: Mexico https://www.jornada.com.mx/ Argentina https://www.pagina12.com.ar/ Cuba http://www.cubadebate.cu/ España https://www.elsaltodiario.com/ Colombia https://www.desdeabajo.info/
English: https://theintercept.com/ https://www.democracynow.org/ https://phys.org/
Trying to understand politics by watching the Web stream go flowing by is pointless. You need high-quality, big picture stuff that requires effort to produce and consume.
In the US, the NYTimes and the Washington Post are the best sources.
To ensure you're exposure is 'fair and balanced' I would add the Economist for a more conservative, but not xenophobic or straight-up nonsensical viewpoint. It has the nice additional bonus of being more global.
Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy are excellent journals for, well, US foreign policy. Finally, the New Yorker has fantastic longer-form articles on American politics.
Reuters (https://www.reuters.com/) is currently my favorite news source.
No paywall. Relatively fast loading, not too annoying site. They're heavy on news, light on opinion, agenda and propaganda. They generally cover anything of consequence globally.
I really like the french newspaper "Le Monde Diplomatique". https://mondediplo.com/
It has an english version.
I'm actually reading it in french. It's a well documented monthly newspaper. Articles aren't here to create some bullshit buzz, but deep articles on many subjects mostly politic, economic, geo politics but ther topics are covered (internet, healthcare, ...)
I've found a feed reader to be particularly useful for getting news in one place. Have been using The Old Reader for over a year now (RIP Google Reader :_( ).
I glance at the headlines to make sure I am aware of current affairs but only go further to reading articles if I need more information or the headline/summary is interesting enough.
I don't appreciate news sites that don't have Atom/RSS feeds.
Some sites: http://www.sci-news.com/feed http://itweb.co.za/rss https://sdtimes.com/feed/ https://cms.qz.com/feed/edition/africa
Mostly other aggregators
https://twitter.com (follow the right people)
https://reddit.com (follow the right subs)
I'm not in the habit of checking in on individual media outlets, but when I see content from WSJ, Bloomberg, or The Information on any of the above aggregators, I generally like what I see.
Is it sad to admit to BBC satirical news programmes. This generally works - they cover the "biggest" stories of the week, and if it strikes a chord I can go google for more.
However it failed spectacularly a few years back - A political enemy of the UK prime Minister David Cameron had written a book claiming Cameron had put his (Cameron's) penis into the mouth of a dead pig for a university prank. This had been banned from being repeated in UK media but twitter and non-english sources were full. So satirical programs were simply full of jokes about pigs, oink oink noises and more. They got hilarious reactions from those in the know but I simply had no idea why - it was weeks before the explanation broke somehow
I really enjoy "Le Monde Diplomatique", it's a french monthly newspaper, mostly about foreign politics. It's translated in more than 25 languages and it started as a newspaper made for diplomatic circles.
After finally cutting myself off of Twitter, my main source for news has been the Wikipedia current events portal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
It's as close as can possibly be to unbiased, only lists significant events, and it covers world news rather than only focusing on America.
My secondary sources are reddit's /r/OutOfTheLoop, and the chyrons I see whenever I happen to walk by a TV that is playing the news (I learned of the Trump impeachment this way). If something doesn't come up in one of these three sources, it's probably not important enough to be worth the stress/anxiety that following the issue would cause.
Perhaps they're not typical sources of news, but I enjoy ProPublica[1] and The Intercept[2] for deep investigative journalism.
Axios has a number of email newsletters that are very good. They come out daily or weekly on specific topics. I like the email format where I can expect a good overview of what is happening in a topic (news/politics in the AM, tech news, science weekly, etc). For me, these have been good overviews from a variety of primary news sources. I also really like the email format. I can choose to consume the information on my schedule and don’t have to worry about constantly checking website for more information. Plus, by the time the news hits Axios, the story is already relatively mature. They also release breaking news bits when major events happen (like SCOTUS rulings), with context.
Bonus feature - they show you an estimate of reading time for each message too. That can be helpful when planning your time.
I have been compiling a list for quite some time now that I have been planning on doing some sort of scoring system of. There also many video sources that are great resources as well.
That said, I will tell you the main lesson I have learned in my obsession for better understanding of the big picture; don't follow outlets, follow journalists, no matter where they go. So I was reading Greenwald long before The Intercept, and if he published somewhere else or gave an interview or talk I'd watch it. The same for others like Seymour Hersh, Robert Fisk, Nassim Taleb, Chris Hedges, Matt Taibbi, Aaron Mate, Whitney Webb et al.
Find the ones that hit hard and keep their integrity. Disregard outlets. Use RSS/atom to avoid the crappy websites that often accompany the content.
- I skim/read a national newspaper every day in the morning for around 10-30m - https://www.TheHindu.com (no this one's not religious at all - quite the opposite :D).
- BBC news (I try to listen to the daily podcast in the evening). I've a radio too.
- Sham Jaff's https://www.whathappenedlastweek.com/ every week.
And then there are friends who never let you miss any event of importance or otherwise.
PS. HN, for me, is other things but not at all a news source.
Economist is very good. They are strongly liberal economics biased in their opinions, but they don't hide it. Their coverage of facts is usually excellent. It's obvious when they are opinionated and when on the other hand quoting expert opinion. I'm a bit on the left, politically, so I like reading 'what the other side is thinking' as well. As a bonus they publish bunch of letters from the readers, where they are criticized for this or that error by their readers, including state officials and university professors.
Quit news. Quit politics. Don't have a "media diet." Make stuff and try to be around people who make stuff instead. To lay a single cobblestone path is to have more virtue than a million hot takes. Most causes are not thought-out enough to advocate, certainly not to scream about. The cobblestone path may outlive you. Politics and news, for all of their rage and sense of urgency, turn with the leaves.
If you want to do good in this world, work on technology, or art, or building something beautiful or durable, like a family. Good comes through these things, not from the political churn, not from quests for power.
If you want to keep up with things, keep up with technology (hi HN), keep up with real people who are doing stuff. It doesn't have to be hyper impressive stuff, just living and making things. Twitter is the most intellectual, and underrated, social network, because people follow too many political accounts and celebrities instead of other people, so if you're looking for an action item that's a good start.
Follow real people. Do real things. Try to inspire and be inspired. Leave the news behind.
I pretty far left, even for European standards, so this is my news:
- https://morningstaronline.co.uk/ (UK Left news)
- https://www.theguardian.com/international (Int. News)
- https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world (Int. News)
- https://taz.de/ (German left newspaper)
- https://www.sueddeutsche.de/ (German centrist)
- https://www.theregister.co.uk/ (For IT news)
- https://techcrunch.com/ (For Startup News)
- https://www.nytimes.com/section/smarter-living (For Lifestyle articles)
Local paper: SF Chronicle print edition. It's very good, great local issues coverage, which I wish people would pay more attention to, in general. Voting in California (especially Oakland, where I live) is never easy (42 questions last time!) and I felt like I knew what half of them were in advance, which is no small thing :)
Economist for world news. First-class politics coverage. I always laugh at their briefings. It's like, OK, here we go. "Briefing: Climate change". I wouldn't be surprised if we get "Briefing: World peace". Weighty and substantive.
Stratechery for tech news. It's great. I also read AVC (Fred Wilson's blog), Jason Crawford's new "Roots of Progress" from time to time. Less often I check out Remains of the Day or Wait But Why.
If I'm really feeling ambitious I read foreign affairs. Straight from the US council on foreign relations (CFR). That's the real deal.
I don't pay much attention to US national news. I don't care what nonsense Trump said. I do care intensely about local issues like transit, schools, pensions, and land use (zoning).
I subscribed to the print edition of the Wall Street Journal largely to get off the screen and consume less fragmented hot-takes.
The news and business reporting is amazing. The editorial board is very “Fox News”, but as someone who’s fairly liberal I get to see outside the bubble.
Edit: Oh, and Dan Neil’s car reviews every Saturday are one of the most relaxing reads of my week.
My list for mostly political and non-corporate media.
In Brazil: https://nexojornal.com.br
I don't scan HN as religiously as I used to do it in the past. I prefer to check Ask HN most of the time as there are more useful threads in it than the main page.
To the original question, I explore Reddit subs of my choice.
For science
sciencedaily.com
lobster.rs
a little less technical science news - newatlas.com
I get access to pressreader.com via my local library a/c
I watch CGTN,
while it's definitely pro china, I still find it to be by far the most valuable news television.
It focuses on Africa and Asia, which I otherwise hear very little about. The value of the news for me is mostly not whatever the news is, but the facts surrounding the news.
For example when they covered the election in Senegal, I learned a ton about Senegal as a result. The news about the election was not the important part in this case, it was learning about the country.
I wrote longer about CGTN here: http://mathiasbonde.com/?p=96
BBC and guardian for international news, then tons of local sites and Twitter for local news, Ars Technica and verge for general tech news and Gsmarena, phonearena and gizchina for Android/mobile news
i narrowed my interests since I lack time, previously used to read about architecture/buildings and science sites, but it's just too much information and if there is something really important it will go to regular news sites, otherwise it's just stuff with application in years/decades, which I don't care
I used to spend majority of my time on Twitter, and reading NYT. But it's too much to pay attention to; I couldn't care about anything happening in the world.
Now most of my time is spent reading local newspapers, newsletters from local publications, and issue-specific publications (climate change).
I'm choosing to care about fewer things and deferring to rest of the world to care about others.
reuters.com
- The UI (especially mobile) is pretty terrible so it's hard to get hooked
- It generally only reports global news that means something rather than talking heads or identity politics
- They have published some articles critical of themselves or affiliates, which in my opinion demonstrates objectivity
Also when I'm commuting to work, I'll listen to the local NPR station on the radio which covers some local topics.
I wish this question would've been asked 1 week later as I have been trying to find a good weekly summary for years. I got fed up & created my own. I finally published it this weekend, but had to wait 4 days for approval. Anyway, here it is: https://www.wnu.news/
To directly answer your question: https://scitechdaily.com/ http://memeorandum.com/ (and culture from https://redef.com/ https://aldaily.com)
Like the "avoid it" answer, I also like to read criticism instead of news, whether it be book reviews, movie reviews, album reviews, video game reviews. Partially to increase my literary skills, and partially to help me notice more around me as I consume entertainment. A&LDaily New Book reviews in particular. I read a lot more book, film, and game reviews than I read, watch, or play.
Longform and Longreads are great ways to find more magazine like researched stories, instead of daily infotainment style "news."
Full List
The aldaily media list (https://www.aldaily.com/media/) and redef sources chart (https://redef.com/charts/sources/total) are also good pages.
For film specifically https://letterboxd.com/ https://www.rottentomatoes.com/ https://www.metacritic.com/
About a hundred websites for various technology news (some of the stories I share here) grouped by interest and signal-to-noise ratio (subjectively determined by me) plus a few related to politics and my hobbies (photography and hiking/camping) all consumed in QuiteRSS on both Windows and macOS.
(Am I supposed to post the OPML file for the tech news?)
Caspian Report on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CaspianReport Condensed news which are more like essays, 15-20mins for each topic, they set the historical context for the current events in a very objective way.
Although it is in german, the „deutschlandfunk“[1] is very informative radio with no advertisement. I mostly listen to it on breakfast, but you can most all articles on the radio on their website.
Personally, I enjoy reading The Week over the weekend to get the news of the week: https://www.theweek.co.uk
Together with that I like to read the free news site from my home country to keep up-to-date what's happening over there.
For French readers: I have created a HN like for French news with the same interface than hacker news and a similar time/point based algorithm for auto sorting most popular articles.
Originally meant for my own consumption, I made an aggregator that I would like to get my news from, in a form and shape I prefer. then my friends started using it and they really liked it. Now available to everyone.
[1] https://embit.ca
Once upon a time I trusted the "news", and to be fair, it seemed more balanced than it is now. Maybe that was just naivete.
Today? Hard to find any "news" that isn't slanted. The weather perhaps? "News" has become propaganda.
The Prepared, by Spencer Wright. Weekly email digest of really interesting things from the world of engineering and manufacturing. https://theprepared.org/
For the USA, the Federal Register is the "daily journal of the United States Government". No spin, just the actual rules.
RealClearPolitics.
Because twice daily it lists several outrageous stories from all sides of the political spectrum. I truly believe every news source today is biased, the only way to get any kind of balanced view is to scan them all and triangulate.
Audible.com to learn about topics through books while in the car or on a walk. I buy paper copies of the books I want to share or reference. I try to alternate nonfiction and fiction (usually science fiction and historical fiction).
Other than memeorandum (techmeme mentioned several times but not memeorandum??), there's The Weekly Sift (https://weeklysift.com/)
Slashdot, The Verge, Vox, Tech Crunch, Ars Technica, TechJuice.pk (Pakistan).
https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news is a news aggregator with a focus on balanced news.
A potentially interesting project: a Show HN OPML file generated from the sources posted on HN and weighted based on frequency of posting and up-votes for articles from those sources.
I don't have any. If something is truly important to my specific interests then my friends who share those interests will alert me to it. All news I get is word of mouth.
I like Bloomberg radio. Most of their stuff is through a global markets lens, so their stuff is less about how things should be and more about how they actually are.
I use News Items (for-pay). https://newsitems.substack.com/
DiscoverDev for great technical blog posts. The Intercept to get an alternative media. Fox News to understand people I disagree with. The Economist.
Summarises news (mostly from a US perspective) concisely with options to dive deeper
I like the Hackaday blog: https://hackaday.com/blog/
an interesting chart on media bias now at version 5.1
https://www.uptopnews.com/ to get a quick tech overview.
I have a heavily cultivated set of custom subreddits (local, photography), but I tend to gravitate to hn for tech more and more these days.
A new account looking for other places with geo political discussion? I am becoming more cautious about how freely I share some knowledge.
There was this study a while ago about how readers stuck to the bubbles they knew. So conservative readers read Drudge Report, and Liberals read Huffington Post.
However, there was one news source that their network analysis had found to be read widely by both conservatives and liberals: the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
I don't know if this is still true, but its worth a browse.
Other than that, I agree with the sentiment here that NYT and WaPo at least go through the effort of fact checking.
Everyone on hacker news is a hedonist who retired from politics or any political discourse.
No one has said it yet to my surprise. Arguably the most trusted news outlet in America today is the financial times. Wall Street Journal at one time was a competitor, but it feels like less so today. I would support the argument made previously in this thread, that the news orgs in print and paywalled online produce better content because they don't have to run the rats race of outrage and ads - FT is one of those.
Financial Times is great! Not worth the price if you dont split it with others, though.
Techurls.com Devurls.com Feedly
I still check out slashdot.org / reddit.com / flashback.org (Swedish)
The Guardian (English), The Conversation, Information (Danish).
Matt Levine @ Bloomberg
HN and Benedict Evans’s newsletter for me
i started vising maagnit.com last week. good mix of mainstream and independent sources, all video though.
Washington Post, Engadget, Mac Rumors
I subscribed to a couple of newsletters to stay up to date. The TLDR I read on a daily basis. JavaScript Weekly is also very good if you're interested int webdev.
Here's a good list of different newsletters: https://github.com/zudochkin/awesome-newsletters#technology-...
One similar site I use is https://lobste.rs/
- Twitter - Reddit
caspian report on youtube
/g/
For scientific nutrition, https://www.reddit.com/r/scientificnutrition
https://voat.co/ as uncensored aggregator for global sociopolitical news.
Newspapers.
Face-to-face conversations and John Oliver on Last Week Tonight
For me, HN is not a news source. HN is a forum.
I read The Economist. Reasons and benefits I have seen so far are:
1. It's weekly. "World this week" section is more than enough to have a summary of what has happened throughout the globe and I can get this information in less than 5 minutes. If you are interested in being more up-to-date, you can also try Economist Espresso, which is daily.
2. It's not only about world news, but also has different sections such as Technology, International, Book & Arts which gives me a wider range of topics to digest on a weekly basis.
3. This is, in my opinion, the most important bit: Because I'm digesting a wider array of topics but only spending an hour or two every week, I have observed a surprising benefit on human relationships as well:
Kick-starting a conversation with a person I don't know.
As a not-so-social person I have always struggled finding a topic to chat about with a person I have met recently. Now, first thing I do is to ask this person where he/she is from, or what their hobbies are, and all of a sudden I make a connection with an article I have recently read on the magazine and try to learn more from that person. This is a wonderful way of building a relationship as well as learning quite interesting facts about the culture or the hobbies of that person.