good news

[cjsmith]

Advice solicited. What are your news sources?

One of the things World Without Mind successfully convinced me is that if individual consumers want good, reliable, thoughtful, accurate written content, we're going to have to be willing to pony up.

I want journalism that is not recycled clickbait with outrage-inducing tweaks to the headlines. I want news articles with some investigation and fact checking behind them. I want editorials with depth and with critical thinking. I cannot expect to get the news content I want via the gateways of Google or Facebook. The market forces actively, strongly, and diametrically oppose it.

(I also want nonfiction books that are well-researched and professionally edited. I need to consider whether I can get those via the gateway of Amazon. So far, I can, if I'm choosy.)

So. I'm looking for good news sources, web OK but they need to be places I can go directly - and I'm willing to pay to subscribe.

How do you evaluate your news sources? Do you research where their money comes from? Do you base it on what you've read by them? Do you base it on what you’ve read about them? Do you do something else I haven't thought of? What are your favorites, and why?

(This is a public entry. Access-limited entry here for folks who don't want to comment on public entries.)

Comments

[lauradi7dw]

I cannot imagine getting news from Google or Facebook. It should be the same about twitter, but I follow actual journalists (and scientists, and historians), whose biases one can get to know over time, as well as local (local to me and to my parents) weather people and DOT type folks, so I get quick emergency info. I go to NPR for national news (and the local NPR stations do have some local stuff). They are often slower to jump on a story that other national outlets, but in some ways, that's a good thing - they internally require multiple sources before they put it on the web page or the radio.
The New York times and Wall Street Journal reporting is often at odds with their editorial/opinion pages (this has been true of the WSJ for decades, but not the NYT until the last few). Wapo is mixed, I find.
I get free national news online from the Miami Herald and some not Republican Texas news from the editor of the Houston paper on Twitter.
I subscribe to The Capitol, which the town newspaper of Annapolis, MD, not for their accuracy (although they seem OK), but because I was sad when their newsroom was part of a gun massacre.
I check in with The Guardian sort of regularly.
ProPublica can be good sometimes, also Vox.
I read The MarySue.
I subscribe to Teen Vogue online. It has mostly gossip and makeup with occasional hard-hitting political reporting (really).

[zipperbear]

On the web, I often seem to follow links to articles on theguardian.com, and they always have a polite blurb asking me to support them by logging or subscribing. Even though I like their coverage, I'm not local enough to feel guilty.

In my car, I often listen to KCBS radio, for traffic, weather, and news, which is all fairly well done, and the news coverage seems to have a neutral viewpoint, with relatively few teasers (once I arrive, I'm not likely to wait for the upcoming news). If I can't make out a sentence, I can switch to their FM channel, which is delayed a few seconds. The sports coverage and the ads are mostly tolerable, but if the Kars-4-Kids jingle comes on, I immediately switch to NPR, which is more interesting and in-depth, but I'm busy driving and don't want to think -- I just want traffic, weather, and a bit of headline news.

My least favorite place for news is the gas pump. Our local gas station was USA Gas, then Shell, and recently changed to Speedway, with at-the-pump TV blather and ads, and I'm usually willing to pay the extra few cents/gal and drive a minute out of the way for the quiet 76 station.

[wcg]

I subscribe to the Washington Post because it's my local paper. It's also reasonably good. The Baltimore Sun used to be good but is now a pale shadow of its former self. I also subscribe to the NY Times because it's a way to support The Daily, a podcast I listen to every morning. It also has Rukmini Callimachi and David Sanger on staff, and I like to think I'm doing my bit to keep them both employed and doing the good work they do.

Free online news sources I aggregate via the Feedly rss aggregator. These include
Christian Science Monitor (really, it's a great source of unbiased news and you can just ignore the occasional religious piece)
Columbia Journalism Review -- for news about the news
Five Thirty Eight -- for their daily Significant Digits summary

I used to get the Reuters and AP feeds, but concluded that I wasn't seeing anything in them that I hadn't already seen in either the Post or the Times. That said, they're good as a list of headlines to scan just to see what your local paper decided not to print.

The Google news feed is decent once you've tweaked it. If I'm traveling it's a great way to see news at a glance.

For more in-depth stuff, take a look at Medium.com. Lots of high quality articles there for a pretty reasonable monthly fee. I also like Lawfare.com for its coverage of legal and foreign policy matters. The site is free and you can support it by purchasing swag from their online shop. They're good people doing good work.

For weather news I use the Weatherunderground.com. It's owned by the Weather Channel now, but it's still better in my opinion. Whatever you do, avoid AccuWeather. They're charlatans.

[redbird]

I get a lot of my news from the CBC website, because I want the bit of distance that comes from a site that isn't aimed primarily at Americans. The BBC and Guardian for similar reasons (though I don't trust the BBC on UK political stuff).

For local-to-me, I'm using the WGBH website, plus universalhub.com (basically one diligent person's aggregator, with congenial politics though perhaps an excessive interest in wild turkeys) and boston.com for lack of anything better.

And some friends, and online acquaintances, who collect and post links, or the occasional "redbird, did you hear about..." from my girlfriend.

[cjsmith]

Note to self: allsides.com has media bias rankings for a lot more stuff than the media bias chart.

[amaebi]

I subscribe to the New York Times, Washington Post, Mother Jones, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair.

I recommend and read truth out.org , which is free, though I donate to it.

I listen to NPR in the car, when Chun Woo's not with me.

I like CBC and the Guardian.

I read articles from the Denver Post, the Colorado Independent, and the Colorado Sun frequently, and subscribe to the Denver Post. The Independent is free, but I donate to it.

I read a lot of news online on individual-story bases, and that comes from sources across the political spectrum.

When it comes to trust,
1. I don't ever treat it as a 0-1 variable. (I trust pretty much everyone who drives near me or might, not to try to ram my car. I don't expect organ donation from anyone. People and outlets vary in their factual reliability across entities and from topic to topic.)
2. When I hear news (not opinion) that I like from Fox, I look for other sources.
3. When I hear any news I like a lot from anywhere, I look for other sources.
4. When I hear any particularly shocking or ridiculous news I look for other sources.
5. I don't expect to be infallible, and I am not a bystander, and I don't want to be, and I know I'm not.

Podcasts I like and would recommend, that are Trump/impeachment-focused: Talking Feds, Impeachment Today, Trump Inc.

[dantesspirit]

Usually BBC. NPR, Al Jahzeera (Sp?), that sort of thing. Mostly because they *aren't* US cenntric based.

Once in awhile Wash Post. TV wise it's usually CBS News.

[mrdreamjeans]

My favorite news sources are: NPR, MPR, The New York Times, Washington Post, CBS and ABC. I base my decision on how balanced and well-written the articles are; I worked as a newspaper reporter in the 1980's, covering school board, commissioners court and city council meetings; I wrote feature articles and worked as a theater critic. I tried to write with as little bias as possible. I don't want my news as entertainment. I hate how the lines have blurred.