I'm in the US. My recommendations are for other US civilians. I recommend reading or watching press briefings at the State Department and White House, and take

I'm in the US. My recommendations are for other US civilians. I recommend reading or watching press briefings at the State Department and White House, and take the journalists questions more seriously than the Press Offices' answers. Josh Earnest at the head of the White House Press Office has bragged about creating echo chambers in the US domestic press - and it's true that these press briefings are where most "establishment" news outlets get their narrative take on ongoing events. Taking the questions more seriously than the answers allows you to understand the criticisms, concerns and complexities in ongoing situations - rather than the spin that comes out of Public Relations talk. Then, I would recommend watching C-SPAN for particular legislation and events you are interested in. It's very easy to see their schedule - they have it posted online. For understanding policy considerations, I recommend watching panels and reading reports from "Washington Thinktanks". These centers are often "track two" political outlets, meaning that they are direct interactions between US academics and officials with academics and officials from abroad, while they are outside official duties and obligations. Nothing gets decided in these thinktanks, but many ideas percolate here, and ideas that are happening behind closed doors cast shadows on "track two" conversations. Take care when picking thinktanks. They have different political and foreign "allegiances" and are often collections of retired and influential people with particular perspectives. I would recommend sampling between a few of them. For news, take care to avoid getting news exclusively from domestic sources and also exclusively from allied sources. Al Jazeera, for example, is owned and operated by the government of Qatar - a US ally. You will see different takes on world events from Al Jazeera, but you will not see narrative or supporting information for events that hurt joint American and Qatari initiatives. Sky News and the BBC are of course similar. The Guardian and Der Speigel did the best jobs covering the actual content of the Snowden disclosures (even though the British Government infiltrated and censored that coverage eventually), so I have grown fonder of them recently. I would recommend picking up a few "frindge" outlets, such as "The Intercept" or following the ACLU, so that internal civil rights controversies make the public feed - as they often do not on domestic and allied information publications. Finally it's incredibly important to read source materials. That means reading the Snowden Disclosures, the Pentagon Papers, the CIA Torture Documents, the DNC Leaks, etc yourself. These controversial news items are too important to have your opinion colored by someone else's summary. It's best if you also read proposed legislation, or at least check the sections that are referred to by various outlets. Know that there are state and non-state actors actively trying to color the perception and distort the facts on certain issues. The Obama Administration infamously censored the Ferguson protests and hacked the Associated Press to determine the identity of sources leaking information about the proposed Iran Deal (just for example). National Security Journalists have been caught time and time again reporting stories with slant directly provided by US intelligence agencies (Ken Dilanian, Judith Miller, etc). Major establishment outlets chose terminology such as "Bulk Collection" during the Snowden Disclosures rather than using the more accurate but more controversial "Mass Surveillance." It's difficult to make suggestions for sources of information because no source or combination of sources should determine your opinion. You have to act, as much as you can in your limited amount of time and energy, like your own investigative reporter.