Hello all. I've recently taken up an urge to read more on world affairs. Apart from the usual newspapers ({The} New York{er} Times, for example), what are some good sites to subscribe to?
The Economist has very high quality content and has the additional benefit of being a weekly newspaper.
Be very aware of the lie that something important happens every day, as perpetuated by the "always-on" news industry, and the related trend to breathlessly consume news blow-by-blow as it happens. Unless you're in a position to make tactical decisions on the basis of this information, it's basically empty calories, only giving off the feeling of being well informed.
I've caught myself seeing the flurry of "breaking news" on Facebook, occasionally reading one or two of the articles, closing the tab and looking forward to reading the post-dust-settles big picture coverage in the next Economist.
What's your goal (knowledge, broader perspective, informed opinion)? I ask, because as someone who works in media, I tend to avoid reading about world affairs... It's just too general for my taste, and my brain ultimately ends up feeling mushy from the overdose of infotainment.
Don't get me wrong, I read constantly, but I imposed a strategy and hard limits, because I realized I wasn't retaining information in a meaningful way (a lot of the information I was absorbing was fluff). With a blog roll, the NYTimes, or even the Economist as your guide, you can spend hours skimming from a financial disaster in Argentina, an airline crash in Malaysia, military exercises near the Ukrainian border, and a populist Islamist uprising in Syria, and never come away with anything meaningful except the vaguest notion that those things are happening... somewhere. In point of fact, many of the people paid to write on those topics don't know what they're talking about, so you'd probably just be wasting your time.
I changed up my strategy and you might find it useful. Pick a region and do a combination of things to learn about it: read local online publications in the major cities, read some of the local literary figures, dabble with the language(s), pick up a broad history and follow that with exploration of specific topics (a coup, a revolution, a period of cultural revival), learn about the geography (and how that affects the history), then go there. Finding a local's blog is also a good way to get insights.
I use http://getprismatic.com/ to find something to read. It basically crawls the articles on your social feeds (Facebook and Twitter) and combines them with your interests, and then creates your personalised feed of articles.
I try to read a mix under the view 'there's is always two sides to a story'. While these might be under the usual newspapers, the three sites I like are;
Though I'm primarily left wingist, I do appreciate what the "other side" has to say. What right wing sites would you recommend? (your list is mostly left wing :P)
I thought the BBC was fairly center? Guardian strays left and AlJazeera was it's own thing. More a liberal middle eastern view. Maybe that says more about me than their position.
But you're correct this list is thin on the right for full coverage. I used to read 'The Australian' but now actively avoid Murdoch press in protest of his shameless politicising so this removes a bunch of mainstream options. I'd be interested if people had any non-Murdoch suggestions myself.
I subscribed to FT in feedly but have never been able to view their content because of a paywall. Normally I would consider paying it, but IIRC it's a pretty expensive subscription compared to other paywalls.
I just suggest you to read and learn at http://courseeplus.com
It has lot of courses and materials to learn everything.
Its free to signup. You can sign in and take your course and then share.
This is a social learning platform.
Be very aware of the lie that something important happens every day, as perpetuated by the "always-on" news industry, and the related trend to breathlessly consume news blow-by-blow as it happens. Unless you're in a position to make tactical decisions on the basis of this information, it's basically empty calories, only giving off the feeling of being well informed.
I've caught myself seeing the flurry of "breaking news" on Facebook, occasionally reading one or two of the articles, closing the tab and looking forward to reading the post-dust-settles big picture coverage in the next Economist.