
Ask HN: What are your news sources other than HN? - aswathrao
I am a regular Hacker News reader. But I like to explore similar options news for Sci-tech and Geo Politics.<p>What other news sources you use ?
======
alkank
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.

~~~
sfifs
While the Economist is often recommended, somehow I increasingly find articles
posted from the Economist to be very shallow takes - as if a high school
literature student was asked to turn in an essay on a given topic. I have
rarely felt satisfied after reading any Economist article in last couple of
years through I don't know if this represents a growing understanding of the
world on my part as I grow older or standards in the Economist declining. I
don't necessarily feel the same issue though for NYT or WaPo articles.

~~~
jesterson
Exactly this. Made me unsubscribe to paper issue few months ago.

Also noticed that they often display clear unjustified political bias, which
didn't happen before. Not sure if it is intentionally or not.

Nonetheless, it remains one of the best sources for me.

------
kristopolous
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.

~~~
ljw1001
This is why we can't have nice things. Like democracy.

But I also have to limit my exposure to political news. Otherwise I get too
depressed.

~~~
kristopolous
Democracy is achieved through active participation in building and maintaining
institutions exercising power, not in passively consuming broadcasted
editorial content.

It's depressing because consuming content in isolation doesn't materially
affect anything. You can't watch your way to political action. It's empty and
everyone knows it.

Donate money to causes you care about, attend meetings, help organize things,
exercise power.

~~~
ljw1001
It wouldn't hurt to have some idea of what's going on, though. Ignoring
politics entirely isn't likely to lead to political action.

------
vwpolo3
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.

~~~
yorwba
[https://newshound.co/editions/en-us/](https://newshound.co/editions/en-us/)
is pretty good for seeing how many news articles published by different
outlets are actually written by AP/Reuters/etc. and only modified slightly. I
think the site was originally intended to allow users to choose the article
from their preferred outlet, but I rarely find myself interested in reading
any of the grouped articles.

~~~
basch
I like the same thing about [https://techmeme.com/](https://techmeme.com/) if
I click the arrow next to a story, it shows me everyone covering it, but they
use editorial discretion to chose the "best" coverage, whether that be the
first copy, or the first good copy.

------
mtmail
99 comments in "Ask HN: What are your other favorite communities other than
Hacker News?"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20023209](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20023209)

~~~
mdip
Thanks for this - that's exactly what I was hoping to find when I clicked into
this.

While I didn't find a whole lot of the content I had intended, I think what _I
did find_ was interesting, none-the-less. The general opinion here seems to be
"news sources suck[0]", especially if it has anything to do with
politics/politics-masquerading-as-economics[1]. And community-driven sites
tend to become dominated by the fringe of one political persuasion or another.
HN does a good job, here, though a look at "new" yields a few headlines who's
content can be summarized as "Your politician iz teh satan11", they rarely
bubble up, and the ones that do -- even the ones that (headline-wise) I'd
probably _never_ click through in another context, I end up appreciating more
often than not.

[0] I tend to agree with this and blame much _but not all_ on the Gell-Mann
Amnesia effect: [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-
ge...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-
amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you)

[1] Replace "economics" with anything else. HN's policy against political-
related posts aside, I think this community tends toward skepticism and a lot
of political is facts/truth twisted to fit an agenda/bias (intentional or
not).

------
BjoernKW
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.

~~~
nannal
I'd advise steering clear of anything related to UK politics published by the
BBC.

There's been a clear pro-right trend for a number of years evident most
clearly during the most recent election and Scotland's independence referendum
of 2014.

~~~
arethuza
The BBC received far more complaints on coverage on the recent election from
Conservative (right) supporters than any other group:

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/dec/31/bbc-
election-c...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/dec/31/bbc-election-
coverage-draws-more-complaints-from-tory-than-labour-supporters)

The right wing in the UK is usually the group most critical of the BBC (AKA
"Brussels Broadcasting Corporation").

I would agree that the coverage during the Scottish referendum in 2014 was
biased but I think that this is because the BBC is naturally biased towards
the status-quo.

Any organisation that can produce _The Thick of It_ being critical of
politicians and _W1A_ about its own antics can't be all bad....

~~~
dpwm
It's worth noting that the linked article does offer selection bias as an
explanation – suggesting that conservative supporters were more likely to
write letters, supporters of other parties less likely to.

Number of complaints seems a pretty poor measure of bias, but it is one that
is often used to reinforce the idea of the BBC's impartiality.

~~~
arethuza
Well, as someone who doesn't support any of the UK major national parties I'd
say that the BBC was fairly good at making pretty much all of them look
equally unappealing!

------
sudoaza
Spanish: Mexico [https://www.jornada.com.mx/](https://www.jornada.com.mx/)
Argentina [https://www.pagina12.com.ar/](https://www.pagina12.com.ar/) Cuba
[http://www.cubadebate.cu/](http://www.cubadebate.cu/) España
[https://www.elsaltodiario.com/](https://www.elsaltodiario.com/) Colombia
[https://www.desdeabajo.info/](https://www.desdeabajo.info/)

English: [https://theintercept.com/](https://theintercept.com/)
[https://www.democracynow.org/](https://www.democracynow.org/)
[https://phys.org/](https://phys.org/)

~~~
ericol
Even thought I'm kinda "ideologically aligned" with Página 12, I wouldn't
consider it unbiased when it comes to country politics (quite the contrary, up
to the point of not reporting news in some cases) from Argentina (As it is
clearly aligned with the "peronist" movement). There are 2 newspaper that from
my point of view do a better job of presenting news in a un-biased way.

One is www.ambito.com (That it originates in a financial newspaper, but their
politics reporting is very good).

the other is www.tiempoar.com.ar

------
ljw1001
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.

~~~
highhedgehog
What about Wall Street Journal?

~~~
chrisweekly
conservative bias

~~~
lukeqsee
> bias

…is not by definition bad. Every publication publishes with bias (recognized
and announced or not). Prejudice and unannounced (or not well-known) is what
you want to avoid. Reading a "conservative bias" is a good thing, if only to
better understand that point of view, regardless of if you agree or not.

~~~
chrisweekly
Agreed! I respect Andrew Sullivan, who said something like "transparency is
the new objectivity."

------
adventured
Reuters ([https://www.reuters.com/](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.

~~~
lukeqsee
They are also my go-to for intra-day news.

I use Economist for longer-cycle opinion and news.

------
pio42
I really like the french newspaper "Le Monde Diplomatique".
[https://mondediplo.com/](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, ...)

~~~
Sytten
I am also a reader of the monde diplo. They have a Spanish version too. We
must recognize the small left-wing bias though, but the articles are always of
very high quality and all the sources are included. This is by far the beat
source of information for international politic and it should be a model for
other newspapers.

~~~
pio42
"We must recognize the small left-wing bias though" Yep, I'm fully agree with
you, that's must be said.

------
zikani_03
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://www.sci-news.com/feed)
[http://itweb.co.za/rss](http://itweb.co.za/rss)
[https://sdtimes.com/feed/](https://sdtimes.com/feed/)
[https://cms.qz.com/feed/edition/africa](https://cms.qz.com/feed/edition/africa)

------
AVTizzle
Mostly other aggregators

[https://twitter.com](https://twitter.com) (follow the right people)

[https://reddit.com](https://reddit.com) (follow the right subs)

[https://techmeme.com](https://techmeme.com)

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.

~~~
AVTizzle
Some follow-on mentions:

[https://www.stratechery.com](https://www.stratechery.com)

[https://www.vox.com](https://www.vox.com)

[https://www.vox.com/recode-decode-podcast-kara-
swisher](https://www.vox.com/recode-decode-podcast-kara-swisher)

------
lifeisstillgood
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

~~~
wastedhours
> Is it sad to admit to BBC satirical news programmes

I for years got all of my main news from HIGNFY, Mock the Week and Private
Eye. I got most of the nuance, without the outrage. Shame we don't have
anything in the UK like The Daily Show, otherwise I probably wouldn't frequent
any news sources other than those that skewer it all.

~~~
tajd
May I add "Dead Ringers" and "The Now Show" to the list of (BBC) satirical
news shows. These shows absolutely nail it for me.

~~~
aembleton
and the News Quiz

------
ajpkco
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.

[https://mondediplo.com/](https://mondediplo.com/)

------
dejawu
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](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.

~~~
clircle
Does anyone know if there is an RSS feed of the Current Events portal?

~~~
vinc
I use this in my RSS reader, from an open source web app I made a few years
back:
[https://news.vinc.cc/search.atom?q=wikipedia+events](https://news.vinc.cc/search.atom?q=wikipedia+events)

------
leftnode
Perhaps they're not typical sources of news, but I enjoy ProPublica[1] and The
Intercept[2] for deep investigative journalism.

[1] [https://www.propublica.org](https://www.propublica.org)

[2] [https://theintercept.com](https://theintercept.com)

------
mbreese
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.

------
arminiusreturns
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.

------
balladeer
\- I skim/read a national newspaper every day in the morning for around 10-30m
- [https://www.TheHindu.com](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/](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.

------
fsloth
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.

~~~
lukeqsee
> but they don't hide it.

This is what I very much appreciate about the Economist and why I subscribe.

Solid handling of the facts and well-announced bias, when present. They say
"based on these facts, this is our editorial opinion" (almost literally), and
I find it refreshing.

------
simonsarris
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.

~~~
ploika
I absolutely cannot believe that the top answer is "ignore the news and spend
more time on Twitter".

This is "Live, Laugh, Love" levels of pseudo-enlightenment.

It is important to know what's happening in the world. It is important to know
about decisions being made that affect the country you live in, and it is
astonishingly ignorant to assume that politics and media are as bad where I
live as you seem to think they are where you live.

~~~
simonsarris
> It is important to know about decisions being made that affect the country
> you live in.

It's mostly not. The vast majority of daily political yammering and scandals
has no effect.

People mostly use politics as a way to dodge real problems in their life that
they could be solving. You see this most clearly with the way people bat about
words like "capitalism" into nonsense definitions. Their criticisms are almost
always manifestations of personal issues.

More generally, people mature when they stop believing politics will solve
their problems. It is very sad to see people who spend years hoping their
candidate will get into office to reorder the world for them (spoiler, they
won't), when they could change how they live today to actually reflect their
own values.

As for breaking news, etc. If its actually important, it will get to you
anyway, I promise.

You don't _have_ to spend time on Twitter, but if you're looking for internet
places to go like the OP is, you can find things there that you will never
find elsewhere. I'm answering his question sincerely. You can make new friends
and start new collab projects through places like Twitter and Hacker News.
I've done it! You're not gonna get that reading CNN or BBC or whatever. You're
probably not going to get any actionable, meaningful information from news
sources like those, especially day to day.

Twitter is 100% amazing, hugely underrated, and a return to the mode of being
that we had pre-1500's, where most knowledge was obtained through dialogue
instead of one-way broadcasts, and I will die on that hill.

~~~
ktm5j
Saying that twitter is anything like the sociopolitical dynamics of pre-1500
is just as ludicrous as your other statements. You're acting like hiding in a
hole and ignoring the issues around you is the right thing to do.. and trying
to sell it like you've discovered this new and better way to live.

~~~
simonsarris
I disagree. I've written a little about this:
[https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/are-we-still-
thinking-795bd...](https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/are-we-still-
thinking-795bd9f4a658)

In pre-modern times one talked to more people, sometimes in a single day, than
one would ever read in one's lifetime. Today it's the opposite: we will always
read/see/hear from more sources that we cannot converse with than we will ever
speak to. Twitter allows you great opportunity for dialogue again. It's the
first social network that's gotten good at this way of interacting.

Declining to read news sites and ignoring capital P Politics is not hiding in
a hole. Perhaps its having priorities that are too different than the ones
you're used to, but if that's the case I hope it gives you pause.

~~~
Terretta
The rebuttal here isn’t that declining to read news is hiding in a hole, it’s
that getting your world-view updates (“news”) by following individuals on
Twitter is worse.

For instance, it’s been argued that the “low-information” Twitter bubble is
partly culpable for Hillary’s loss.

Having read your assertions here and your link, it seems your premise is based
on a misunderstanding of historical and modern sociology of both conversation
and information propagation.

You’re focusing on mass media as though it replaced conversation. It’s not at
all clear that it did.

People still converse verbally as much as they used to, but with today’s
mobility patterns the interlocutors they encounter in person both among
acquaintances and at random today are more diverse than those they rubbed
shoulders with 500 years ago. And each of those can converse with a more
diverse group in turn.

By sifting through and following a subset of Twitter, you’re (however
unintentionally) narrowing your aperture, and you tend to end up consuming
_bon mots_ like bonbons rather than engaging in deeper dialog
opportunistically or spontaneously.

Before Twitter, its mode of communication was called micro-casting:

[https://study.com/academy/lesson/microcasting-definition-
exa...](https://study.com/academy/lesson/microcasting-definition-example-
impact.html)

You’ve drawn a line between TV or radio and Twitter as though it’s
conversational, but once you account for the ratio of pub to sub, from
followed to followers, you see it’s not the same mode as conversation. On the
contrary, you’ve just self-selected your own personalized micro-channel, and
are recommending others do the same to the exclusion of thoughtfully curated
information from a long evolving school of journalistic practice.

At the same time, despite Netflix, Twitter, or Facebook, the art of serious
and coherent conversation endures, ideally informed by both individual
interests and shared news of significance:

[https://www.economist.com/special-
report/2006/12/19/chatteri...](https://www.economist.com/special-
report/2006/12/19/chattering-classes)

From the town crier to the newsprint to today’s subscriptions to Reuters,
ProPublica, economist, guardian, wapo, nyt, etc. (see link for independent
sources), curated and contextualized news has informed local conversation,
national debate, and societal outcomes.

[https://soapboxie.com/social-issues/A-Real-Need-for-the-
Real...](https://soapboxie.com/social-issues/A-Real-Need-for-the-Real-News)

That value is being challenged by advertising driven content mills, which
degrades the quality of news, but selecting vetted journalistic sources is not
particularly different from selecting which Twitter quipsters to follow.

Some sources are tilting at the ad supported windmill, trying to find
alternative economic models for journalism:

[https://blog.joincivil.com/the-value-of-
journalism-1c0e6905f...](https://blog.joincivil.com/the-value-of-
journalism-1c0e6905f780)

To quote from that link, _“... at the end of the day, we live in the real
world. It’s what makes journalism so essential and durable: a free society’s
demand to know what’s happening will never cease.“_

------
akuji1993
I pretty far left, even for European standards, so this is my news:

\- [https://morningstaronline.co.uk/](https://morningstaronline.co.uk/) (UK
Left news)

\-
[https://www.theguardian.com/international](https://www.theguardian.com/international)
(Int. News)

\-
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world)
(Int. News)

\- [https://taz.de/](https://taz.de/) (German left newspaper)

\- [https://www.sueddeutsche.de/](https://www.sueddeutsche.de/) (German
centrist)

\- [https://www.theregister.co.uk/](https://www.theregister.co.uk/) (For IT
news)

\- [https://techcrunch.com/](https://techcrunch.com/) (For Startup News)

\- [https://www.nytimes.com/section/smarter-
living](https://www.nytimes.com/section/smarter-living) (For Lifestyle
articles)

~~~
pjc50
I would strongly suggest that anyone in the UK finds a non-UK news source, and
SDZ is a good choice. Irish Times also works - not remotely left, but outside
the UK bubble.

~~~
weavie
Do you mean [https://sdz.today/](https://sdz.today/) ?

It seems to be down at the moment.

~~~
pjc50
No, I forgot that the abbreviation doesn't have a D in it.
[https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=h...](https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sueddeutsche.de%2Fthema%2FBrexit)

------
eldavido
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).

------
gdubs
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.

------
bag531
My list for mostly political and non-corporate media.

[https://theintercept.com/](https://theintercept.com/)

[https://jacobinmag.com/](https://jacobinmag.com/)

[https://www.currentaffairs.org/](https://www.currentaffairs.org/)

~~~
bscphil
Genuine question from someone who probably (given your choices) agrees with
you politically most of the time: do any of these strike you as acceptable
_news_ (i.e. non-editorial) sources? If so, why?

~~~
bag531
The Intercept - absolutely.

Current Affairs is certainly more editorial.

Jacobin is somewhere in between.

------
ibrahimcesar
In Brazil: [https://nexojornal.com.br](https://nexojornal.com.br)

------
pknerd
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.

------
isthis1984
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

------
MperorM
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](http://mathiasbonde.com/?p=96)

~~~
molteanu
> I’m really ignorant regarding most issues outside of the west.

I agree. We kinda are. That's why is nice to read all these alternative
sources. You don't have to agree with them, but at least you'll ask yourself
more questions. Thanks for the link and the advice. I'll definitely watch some
CGTN.

------
Markoff
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

------
G8WyaX
[https://news.google.com/?edchanged=1&hl=en-
US&gl=US&ceid=US:...](https://news.google.com/?edchanged=1&hl=en-
US&gl=US&ceid=US:en)

[https://news.google.com/?edchanged=1&hl=en-
GB&gl=GB&ceid=GB:...](https://news.google.com/?edchanged=1&hl=en-
GB&gl=GB&ceid=GB:en)

[https://www.aldaily.com/](https://www.aldaily.com/)

------
foob4r
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.

------
Tylast
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/](https://www.wnu.news/)

------
jackklika
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.

~~~
gpsx
I like Reuters because it seems to be one of the more neutral news sources in
the US.

------
basch
To directly answer your question:
[https://scitechdaily.com/](https://scitechdaily.com/)
[http://memeorandum.com/](http://memeorandum.com/) (and culture from
[https://redef.com/](https://redef.com/)
[https://aldaily.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

[https://techmeme.com/river](https://techmeme.com/river)

[https://hckrnews.com](https://hckrnews.com)

[https://redef.com/](https://redef.com/)

[https://aldaily.com](https://aldaily.com)

[https://scitechdaily.com](https://scitechdaily.com)

[https://longform.org](https://longform.org)

[https://longreads.com](https://longreads.com)

[https://mediagazer.com/river](https://mediagazer.com/river)

[https://memeorandum.com/river](https://memeorandum.com/river)

The aldaily media list
([https://www.aldaily.com/media/](https://www.aldaily.com/media/)) and redef
sources chart
([https://redef.com/charts/sources/total](https://redef.com/charts/sources/total))
are also good pages.

For film specifically [https://letterboxd.com/](https://letterboxd.com/)
[https://www.rottentomatoes.com/](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/)
[https://www.metacritic.com/](https://www.metacritic.com/)

------
mikece
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?)

------
vijayrc
Caspian Report on Youtube:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/CaspianReport](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.

~~~
PopeDotNinja
I like some of the channel's older content. The newer stuff is a bit
opinionated for my taste.

------
0XAFFE
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.

[1] [https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/](https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/)

------
wdb
Personally, I enjoy reading The Week over the weekend to get the news of the
week: [https://www.theweek.co.uk](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.

------
unictek
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.

Link: [http://news.keymetrics.com/](http://news.keymetrics.com/)

------
embit
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](https://embit.ca)

------
m_alexgr
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.

------
cmdr2
The Prepared, by Spencer Wright. Weekly email digest of really interesting
things from the world of engineering and manufacturing.
[https://theprepared.org/](https://theprepared.org/)

------
protomyth
For the USA, the Federal Register is the "daily journal of the United States
Government". No spin, just the actual rules.

[https://www.federalregister.gov/](https://www.federalregister.gov/)

------
RickJWagner
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.

------
mch82
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).

------
JohnL4
Other than memeorandum (techmeme mentioned several times but not
memeorandum??), there's The Weekly Sift
([https://weeklysift.com/](https://weeklysift.com/))

------
abhs
Slashdot, The Verge, Vox, Tech Crunch, Ars Technica, TechJuice.pk (Pakistan).

------
blowski
[https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-
news](https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news) is a news aggregator
with a focus on balanced news.

------
mikece
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.

------
Smithalicious
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.

------
superbaconman
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.

------
WCityMike
I use News Items (for-pay).
[https://newsitems.substack.com/](https://newsitems.substack.com/)

------
Ozzie_osman
DiscoverDev for great technical blog posts. The Intercept to get an
alternative media. Fox News to understand people I disagree with. The
Economist.

------
michajg
[http://axios.com](http://axios.com)

Summarises news (mostly from a US perspective) concisely with options to dive
deeper

------
redsparrow
I like the Hackaday blog:
[https://hackaday.com/blog/](https://hackaday.com/blog/)

------
allard
an interesting chart on media bias now at version 5.1

[https://www.adfontesmedia.com](https://www.adfontesmedia.com)

------
wishrider
[https://www.uptopnews.com/](https://www.uptopnews.com/) to get a quick tech
overview.

------
petepete
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.

------
humaniania
A new account looking for other places with geo political discussion? I am
becoming more cautious about how freely I share some knowledge.

------
omarhaneef
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.

~~~
mikece
Worse than that: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube think they are doing us a
service by inferring our bubble based on what we consume and then give us an
ever-smaller bubble thinking it's what we want. What I want is full-spectrum
coverage of topics: I want to know what the American left, right, and
conspiracy fringe think of something, what the Euroskeptics and EU-supporters
think, what the prevailing opinion is in Moscow and Tokyo -- and then draw my
own conclusions if it's important to me.

------
kp98
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.

------
whatitdobooboo
Financial Times is great! Not worth the price if you dont split it with
others, though.

------
dakoondog
Techurls.com Devurls.com Feedly

------
AnnoyingSwede
I still check out slashdot.org / reddit.com / flashback.org (Swedish)

~~~
cerberusss
I'm still on Slashdot as well. The discourse is less civil, but more straight.
Still, I prefer the civility of HN :)

------
hestefisk
The Guardian (English), The Conversation, Information (Danish).

------
PanosJee
Matt Levine @ Bloomberg

~~~
pjc50
"Money Stuff" is hilarious.

------
plafer
HN and Benedict Evans’s newsletter for me

------
oceanbreeze83
i started vising maagnit.com last week. good mix of mainstream and independent
sources, all video though.

------
adamlangsner
Washington Post, Engadget, Mac Rumors

------
nerdbeere
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-...](https://github.com/zudochkin/awesome-
newsletters#technology-in-general)

------
timvisee
One similar site I use is [https://lobste.rs/](https://lobste.rs/)

------
HNLurker2
Everyone on hacker news is a hedonist who retired from politics or any
political discourse.

------
maltelandwehr
\- Twitter \- Reddit

~~~
ljw1001
Getting your politics from twitter is a horrible idea. Even if it wasn't full
of trolls and bots specifically intended to mislead, it would still be an
endless spew of pointless, often fake, outrage where the only thing that
matters is keeping Jack Dorsey rich and keeping twitter-itself afloat.

------
vijayrc
caspian report on youtube

------
cuechan
/g/

------
Torches66
[https://voat.co/](https://voat.co/) as uncensored aggregator for global
sociopolitical news.

Newspapers.

------
sunkenvicar
American: [https://foxnews.com](https://foxnews.com)

Russian: [https://rt.com](https://rt.com)

Canadian: [https://thepostmillennial.com](https://thepostmillennial.com)

~~~
jknoepfler
How on earth can anyone present fox news as a serious news site? It's the
living incarnation of for-profit shock journalism. It doesn't even pretend to
have actual content. (I'd be just as irritated if someone said comedy
central... Which is probably slightly more accurate, but still utterly
idiotic)

~~~
sunkenvicar
Fox News is by far the most popular cable TV news network. Many people also
read their website.

Would you like to share your news sources?

~~~
jknoepfler
"By far" \- false

"Popular" \- lol, chinese state media is an order of magnitude more popular,
do you think it's an order of magnitude more trustworthy?

I personally read the economist, ny times, and wsj for short-cycle online
content. I listen to npr in the car, and then... I don't know, read
constantly? Everything? Tech blogs? trade journals? History books? Literature?
Religious shit? I struggle to keep up with the world in a meaningful way.
Don't you?

Fox anything drowns itself in the vulgar idiocy of certitude. I can imagine no
lesser epistemological sin in 2020.

Read and listen to get data, not to absorb obvious horseshit

------
jdc
Face-to-face conversations and John Oliver on Last Week Tonight

------
icelend
For me, HN is not a news source. HN is a forum.

~~~
rumanator
It can be both if there are discussions on newspieces that you happened not to
catch elsewhere.

------
molteanu
[https://www.rt.com/](https://www.rt.com/)

~~~
akuji1993
Love how people downvote RT but upvote BBC. Take any media outlet with a big
grain of salt. Al Jazeera is also a good news source, when you are intelligent
enough to question motives.

~~~
molteanu
People are not quite objective around HN when it comes to political stuff.
That's fine, the technical stuff is still good.

> Take any media outlet with a big grain of salt

True. That's why you can't trust a person who gets his/her info only from BBC
and NYT anymore than you can trust an engineer who doesn't know Lisp.

I'm also reading The Guardian, it has some nice opinion pieces, but when
Australia is on fire the news is how some tourists saved some koalas and it's
all well. When the Amazon burns, that's another story.

