
Ask HN: How do you curate and keep up with general news? - gravedave
As in, a way to keep up with stuff that is relevant in the long term, like wars, while discarding flavor-of-the-week scandals and such. Any periodic retrospectives you follow, stuff like that?
======
wsc981
Perhaps it's better to just not keep up with the news too much. From what I
understand the world is safer today than it has ever been, especially in the
Western world. And most news is bad news anyway - you won't feel much happier
knowing about it.

Maybe it's better to focus on what's important and what you have some
influence over, like the well-being of your family and friends, self
improvement and your future goals.

~~~
gravedave
I know that much, but when socializing, I still want to be able to not be like
"huh?" when someone brings up, say, Russia's suspension from the G8/G7 over
their annexation of Crimea.

~~~
lfowles
Any issue with letting _them_ be your news source? "Really, I haven't been
following, could you explain what's happening?"

~~~
Rapzid
Given how barely reliable news outlets are I'd hate for some bodies sole news
source to be Freddie in accounts.

~~~
lfowles
You don't have to take Freddie's word to be absolute truth. It's probably
going to be a better conversation if you go in with an open mind than if you
persistently correct his sources[0].

[0]: [http://xkcd.com/1475/](http://xkcd.com/1475/)

------
austenallred
Tomorrow we launch [https://grasswire.com](https://grasswire.com) to the
public. It's in private beta now, but it's a newsroom for the internet.
Basically a hacker news full of news junkies and reporters. They ruthlessly
curate and fact check the world's most important news.

The end result is a daily (or weekly) email that gets sent out. It's
digestible in thirty seconds, contains only important news, and has been fact
checked by thousands of people to ensure accuracy. No agenda, no celebrity
gossip, just facts and sources.

I would be honored if you would check it out.

~~~
Paul_S
"In February 2015, the news will be completely turned over to you. Access is
first-come, first-served. Reserve your space now."

How do I do that? It's March and all I can see is that text.

~~~
austenallred
We were going to launch on the 28th, then we realized it was a Saturday.
Whoops! So we're launching Monday.

Just drop your email in the field and we'll send out an email tomorrow that
you're in.

~~~
Tinyyy
There is indeed a problem with adblock on the site. It’s funny that I saw the
email form for a split second before it was blocked, so I spent the past 10
minutes figuring out how to let it pop up.

------
d4nt
News is an entertainment show. News editors edit actual events into an
engaging narrative in the same way that reality TV shows edit the events that
occur in their show's domain into a narrative. There is plenty of raw material
to work with. On any given day there are wars, injustices, political in-
fighting, dishonest or fraudulent behaviour, and amusing stories about dogs on
skateboards (or whatever). They're just editing it together.

Those in positions of power are so good at manipulating the news agenda too.
Everyone from the government to the British Royal Family to Beyoncé to ISIS
are at it; essentially pitching stories to news editors in the hope they get
picked up.

Personally, I try to avoid it. I find news uses fear and outrage too much as a
way to keep you watching, and it engenders a sense of hopelessness. Come
election time I do some research and vote accordingly, the rest of the time I
avoid it.

~~~
charlysisto
no one lives in a cave here. It's close to impossible to keep away from the
noise. After all sharing news is being part of the human community. You don't
want to cut yourself from it.

However you don't want to get overwhelmed and there's a lot of sensationalist
journalism out there that seeks to stimulate your reptilian brain. On the
other hand theres' also good (aka rational/analytical) journalism that helps
making a sane narrative out of it without getting you stuck in the rabbit
hole.

Stay close to those whatever side of the political spectrum you find yourself
and you'll save a lot of time.

------
Paul_S
You should really ask yourself if you need to. If you're middle class, have a
highly skilled job that pays enough money and live in a major city (and you
have settled there) in a peaceful western country then it genuinely is a waste
of time to listen to the news as it has zero effect on you.

But to answer your direct question I listen to the Today programme on BBC
Radio 4 (6-9am). The reporting is as terrible as any other major news network
but has just enough info to keep you in touch with what is happening so you
don't feel lost in conversations at the pub.

------
DanBC
I read IRIN, Trust.org, and reliefweb.

[http://irinnews.org/](http://irinnews.org/)

[http://www.trust.org/humanitarian/](http://www.trust.org/humanitarian/)

[http://reliefweb.int/](http://reliefweb.int/)

Edit: curious that this got downvoted so rapidly when OP specifically mentions
wanting to keep track of things like wars, which these sites all cover, while
discarding flavor-of-the-week scandals, which again these sites avoid.

~~~
mrottenkolber
Because HN is the worst possible place to have an exchange of views. Seems
like a sensible selection of news sources to me.

May I add: The Intercept is nice.

------
danohuiginn
For anybody who reads French, I recommend
[http://www.courrierinternational.com/](http://www.courrierinternational.com/).
They select and translate articles from the world press on whatever are the
most important issues. So you'll get Greek discussions of Syriza, Ukrainian
and Russian comment on Donbass, etc.

I've not found anything as good in English, but presumably it's out there
somewhere.

Otherwise, I find it useful to read through archives. The Guardian does a good
job of tagging everything. The New York Times is good for world news by
country -- e.g. if you want to know what's been going on in Poland lately,
start at
[http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesan...](http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/poland/index.html)

Also, Spiegel Online put up some of their best articles in English, though
they can be frustratingly pompous and long-winded.

~~~
jorgecastillo
I am going to get a little off-topic here, another awesome website in french
is [http://linuxfr.org/](http://linuxfr.org/). If you know of any other
website of similar content & an quality in English, Spanish or Portuguese
please let me know. There are some English websites I've checked before like
Phoronix, Linux.com, Slashdot, etc., but I don't feel that they have as much
high quality content as LinuxFr.

------
troymc
Check out the "In the News" column on the home page of Wikipedia:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)

For a few pages of quick summaries of all the big political, international,
and business news, check out the opening pages of _The Economist_.

------
vermontdevil
Do you remember any significant news one year ago today?

That's why I ignore the general news. Long-form journalism on the other hand
is what I read.

~~~
chatmasta
Yes, actually. MH 370 and Ukraine are two stories that began in March of last
year. They're still relevant today.

The news is a collection of stories. The big ones last a long time. If you
want to sound like an informed world citizen, you should keep up on the big
stories. It's not always easy to tell which stories will be big, but if you
start following them early, it's easy to keep up with them.

~~~
vermontdevil
Ukraine is big today because it's still ongoing.

People have forgotten MH370 already save for that one guy who came up with a
wild conspiracy theory about MH370 landing in Kazakhstan.

I'm referring to general news that is talked about on a daily basis. Most of
them are quickly forgotten.

~~~
chatmasta
Agreed many headlines are quickly forgotten.

Ukraine is still ongoing, and obviously relevant. At what point should someone
have started following the story? Does it have to maintain relevance for a
minimum time period before it's worthy of following?

------
MarcScott
Old fashioned, I know, but I listen to the radio. I often have BBC Radio 4 on
in the background, where I can catch the hourly news. Then there' she
excellent Today program in the morning and PM in the afternoon.

~~~
danohuiginn
I'm a big fan of the BBC World Service, which tends to have more content and
less human interest compared to Radio 4. In particular 'Newshour' is the best
general world news coverage I've found, and available as podcast
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/newshour](http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/newshour)

~~~
danohuiginn
and there's Democracy Now -- it's unashamedly politically biased, but brings
up important stories that don't get covered much elsewhere. The best part is
the news roundup at the start -- the rest is features and interviews, which
can be very good or entirely dull.
[http://www.democracynow.org/podcasting](http://www.democracynow.org/podcasting)

------
bennesvig
I subscribe to NextDraft, which sends me a daily email with top stories. One
of the few newsletters I enjoy.

[http://nextdraft.com/](http://nextdraft.com/)

------
jeffreyrogers
I don't. There are a handful of sites I follow via RSS and I get any really
important new through them. I think what you'll find though is that most news
isn't relevant to you (including HN) and that you can both be less anxious and
have more time to focus on whatever is important to you if you miss it. Just
try delaying news consumption by a week to see what I mean. Most of it will
seem irrelevant a week later.

Since I saw you mentioned wanting to be able to talk about whatever other
people are bringing up in conversation or just having a basic awareness of
what's going on in the world, you might want to try thebrowser.com. It usually
links to a handful of high quality articles each day about topics related to
what's going on in the world.

------
archagon
Reddit — subscribed /r/news and /r/worldnews. It's terrible for the comments,
but the pressing issues will tend to float to the top. Also, if anything
_really_ bad happens, I usually see it on Facebook, MetaFilter, or even HN.

------
mrottenkolber
I have subscribed to Guardian Weekly, it's... OK. I get easily irritated by
incompetent reporters so the fact that I don't regret getting the subscription
says a lot of good things about the general quality of the Guardian. As an
anecdote: The coverage of a local event (Bonn, Germany) by the Guardian was
OK. Not perfect, but not a complete outrage either. And that's a good thing
because e.g. the local paper "Generalanzeiger" usually fumbles even the local
news in a way so horrific its.... uargh.

I have found [http://everything2.com/](http://everything2.com/) to be an
amazing source of general thought food.

------
jonathansizz
I find some of the comments on here along the lines of 'I don't bother with
the news because it doesn't immediately directly affect me' to be a little
worrying.

In an era where power is increasingly concentrated, centralized and opaque, we
need responsible citizens to become _more_ engaged. A prerequisite for this is
that people take an active interest in what's going on in the world, even at
the expense of their immediate personal interests.

You can't avoid politics; if you ignore it you're just deferring to other
people who'll make decisions for you. Cynicism is the enemy of a decent
society.

~~~
DanBC
> I find some of the comments on here along the lines of 'I don't bother with
> the news because it doesn't immediately directly affect me' to be a little
> worrying.

It explains why so many people were surprised by Snowden leaks even though
we'd had similar reports for years before Snowden.

------
lfx
Quartz daily brief are great! [http://qz.com/daily-
brief/](http://qz.com/daily-brief/) I got news every morning, check the
headlines while on commute. News are not too much political, economical, etc,
just kind of most important bits. News about Tesla and SpaceX - check. Google,
FB and startups - check. Some interesting bits - check. Word in general -
check, check, check.

------
manish_gill
Curated Google News, Quartz daily emails, BBC, LiveMint, The Economist. Gave
up on Reddit as a news source quite a while ago. It's a cesspool.

For Tech News, HN has been my main source so far, but I'm adding Techmeme to
the mix as well.

Edit: Yahoo's News Digest app is fantastic as well. Twice a day, it sends me a
few top articles that are making the news. And it's beautifully designed. I
highly recommend it.

------
a3n
The NYT sends me an email every morning of 20 or so articles from subjects
that I chose, and I read two or three of them most days.

The Economist has the same thing, I think, but they're more expensive, and
probably somewhat overlapping the NYT service.

And HN. In fact you could use HN as in the old saw, "If it's important, the
waiter will mention it." I first heard about the black and blue dress on HN.

------
lfowles
I listen to NPR on the commute. Since I'm focused on driving, any newsworthy
event has to be mentioned a dozen times before it gets through to me. A sort
of low pass filter for news.

I tried to follow newspapers and the Economist, but it was wasted time
brushing up on trivia that doesn't affect 99% of my life (edit: and that I
have no reasonable chance of changing).

~~~
bdastous
I recommend checking out NPR One if you haven't already:
[http://www.npr.org/about/products/npr-
one/](http://www.npr.org/about/products/npr-one/)

Disclaimer: I work on the back end services for the app.

~~~
lfowles
Ahhhh I wish I had a good data connection inside the office, this would be
useful.

------
jorgecastillo
I follow the RSS feed of multiple newspapers & I read my local newspaper &
Newsweek in print. But to be frank news consumption is like any other form of
entertainment, don't delude yourself into thinking that the time you use
consuming news is time well spent.

------
joshcanhelp
I'm a big fan for Vox's daily news summary. They have a great way of giving
relevant information in a compact format. What's nice is that they don't just
post to their own site, they curate from others as well.

------
dlu
The Daily Show. I have no idea what I'm going to do when Jon Stewart retires.

------
olalonde
I read
[http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/top/](http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/top/)
about once or twice a month (pro-tip: avoid comment section).

------
java-man
Check out personalized news curated by an AI, definitely not mainstream
sources.

[http://News-AI.com](http://News-AI.com)

------
anthony_franco
I signed up for Bit of News. It sends me a daily email with the important five
or so topics of the day.

~~~
gravedave
That's more or less what I wanted! Would have hoped for a weekly thing, but
close enough.

------
igammarays
Yahoo News Digest, a notification once every morning and evening on my phone.

------
DocFeind
I would have to say/agree with BBC and NPR radio.

------
plg
NYTimes

CBC News

Guardian

just about covers it for me

