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Eliminating notification spam sounds great and reading daily newspapers sounds great, but I've tried another variant of this with some success. Reading just the

Eliminating notification spam sounds great and reading daily newspapers sounds great, but I've tried another variant of this with some success. Reading just the weekly version of the Economist left me vast amounts of free time and I didn't feel any less informed than when I was reading several sources over the course of a day. Of course, that's my own estimation of how well informed I was, so that might be far from accurate.

mFixman 9y ago
I go open step below that: most of my news comes from The Economist and similar weekly newspapers, but I also keep notification spam for important news from the BBC, which is mostly unbiased. I'm glad I know about yesterday's resignation of one of Trump's economic aides, but I don't spend valuable minutes trying to find everyone's opinions about its consequences.
davidw 9y ago
I used to get by on The Economist and a smattering of online news. It works pretty well, but not so much for a world that feels like it's moving really quickly. For instance: https://twitter.com/ananavarro/status/971209163115253760 https://twitter.com/ananavarro/status/971209163115253760 This week: Nunberg subpoenaed, couldn’t stop blabbing; Kellyanne said to have violated ethics law; Carson realized HUD’s complicated; Cohn quit, over tariffs not anti-Semitism; Guy from UAE who knows stuff, cooperating w/Mueller; Trump tweeted there’s no chaos; It’s only Tuesday. ... and she wrote that before the news broke about the porn star suing Trump about their hush agreement/money inked in the weeks before the election. I subscribed to the Washington Post via Amazon for national coverage, and I also get my local paper for their coverage of things like city council meetings, which actually make a lot more differences in our day to day lives than a lot of national issues.
- rubidium 9y ago
  Why do you desire to be connected to that world?
  - davidw 9y ago
    Because I live in the US, and this stuff matters, one way or the other.
    - ghotli 9y ago
      I don't mean to pick on you specifically, because I'm sure you have your reasons for saying "this stuff matters". However, I am curious of what the value is of staying that up to date in the news cycle other than dopamine hits. Seems more like an addiction to stay that on top of the news cycle than a more measured approach like the weekly economist digests posited above.
      - davidw 9y ago
        The Economist just doesn't cover everything that's going on. Realistically, any one of us could ignore most news and be fine, but I feel that it's part of our job as citizens to be informed and aware. I also feel that it's worth kicking in some money to the people doing the journalism that's uncovering important stuff. Look at the Roy Moore stuff that got uncovered, for instance. That was the election right there.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- jacobush 9y ago
  Could you do a weekly in this format? Reads very entertaining!
- majormajor 9y ago
  How much of those will be meaningful to have known about on Tuesday instead of Friday or Saturday, three months from now? A lot of events have been discussed, fewer of them have had significant impact yet, or have well-understood impact yet.
  - jethro_tell 9y ago
    Even more of those items are not actionable by me, which means as 'news' it's as good tomorrow as Friday. There is something about how much info you can consume weekly vs. daily. That's a separate question though.
- djrogers 9y ago
  > This week: Nunberg subpoenaed, couldn’t stop blabbing; Kellyanne said to have violated ethics law; Carson realized HUD’s complicated; Cohn quit, over tariffs not anti-Semitism; Guy from UAE who knows stuff, cooperating w/Mueller; Trump tweeted there’s no chaos; It’s only Tuesday. If you consider all of that ‘news’ rather than mostly rumor and spectacle, then you probably fit in with the social media news crowd. I personally don’t see anything on that list that’s worthy of being called News, and certainly not anything I’d need to read about the day it happened. The closets might be the Mueller thing, but even that is technically hearsay until mueller’s next report comes out - then it’s news.
detritus 9y ago
I'm a big fan of The Economist and have bought and/or subscribed to it pretty much continuously for almost twenty years now (young old man that i am), but unless you're entirely beholden to its agenda, which I find very un-self-questioning - I'd suggest you offset its perspective with a 'complementary adversarial' weekly. Last time I swore off excess media consumption (about a decade ago) I kept on with The Economist and found I was 'drinking the Kool Aid' after a while.
- bryananderson 9y ago
  What would you recommend as a good complement to The Economist?
  - detritus 9y ago
    To be honest, I'm not sure of a competing one-stop shop - I certainly didn't know when I last fasted from media. These days I do a daily scan of all the none-too-tabloidy newspapers (UK-based here), and on a weekly-or-so basis take in the likes of The Spectator, National Review and Foreign Affairs. - edit: I'm not going to lie - I could probably do with another breather - I'm unsure how much value I get from scouring all this crap.
  - smacktoward 9y ago
    If you're looking for an explicitly adversarial complement, Jacobin might fit the bill: https://jacobinmag.com/ https://jacobinmag.com/ (Though it's quarterly rather than weekly, of course)
  - thinkingemote 9y ago
    Newstatesman in the UK for a left wing weekly, politics centred periodical with minimal arts section and the book reviews are essentially ideological articles. the Spectator is more popular and a Tory/ right wing weekly with almost half of it devoted to culture, books, arts etc. I found the arts component of the Spectator to be relatively free of ideology. Recently I bought both and compared them. I found the writing quality in the newstatesman to be more variable, with a few Excellent and a few utterly awful articles. The Spectator is overall of good quality but nothing really stood out.

mFixman 9y ago

I go open step below that: most of my news comes from The Economist and similar weekly newspapers, but I also keep notification spam for important news from the BBC, which is mostly unbiased. I'm glad I know about yesterday's resignation of one of Trump's economic aides, but I don't spend valuable minutes trying to find everyone's opinions about its consequences.

davidw 9y ago

I used to get by on The Economist and a smattering of online news. It works pretty well, but not so much for a world that feels like it's moving really quickly. For instance: https://twitter.com/ananavarro/status/971209163115253760 https://twitter.com/ananavarro/status/971209163115253760 This week: Nunberg subpoenaed, couldn’t stop blabbing; Kellyanne said to have violated ethics law; Carson realized HUD’s complicated; Cohn quit, over tariffs not anti-Semitism; Guy from UAE who knows stuff, cooperating w/Mueller; Trump tweeted there’s no chaos; It’s only Tuesday. ... and she wrote that before the news broke about the porn star suing Trump about their hush agreement/money inked in the weeks before the election. I subscribed to the Washington Post via Amazon for national coverage, and I also get my local paper for their coverage of things like city council meetings, which actually make a lot more differences in our day to day lives than a lot of national issues.

rubidium 9y ago
Why do you desire to be connected to that world?
- davidw 9y ago
  Because I live in the US, and this stuff matters, one way or the other.
  - ghotli 9y ago
    I don't mean to pick on you specifically, because I'm sure you have your reasons for saying "this stuff matters". However, I am curious of what the value is of staying that up to date in the news cycle other than dopamine hits. Seems more like an addiction to stay that on top of the news cycle than a more measured approach like the weekly economist digests posited above.
    - davidw 9y ago
      The Economist just doesn't cover everything that's going on. Realistically, any one of us could ignore most news and be fine, but I feel that it's part of our job as citizens to be informed and aware. I also feel that it's worth kicking in some money to the people doing the journalism that's uncovering important stuff. Look at the Roy Moore stuff that got uncovered, for instance. That was the election right there.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
jacobush 9y ago
Could you do a weekly in this format? Reads very entertaining!
majormajor 9y ago
How much of those will be meaningful to have known about on Tuesday instead of Friday or Saturday, three months from now? A lot of events have been discussed, fewer of them have had significant impact yet, or have well-understood impact yet.
- jethro_tell 9y ago
  Even more of those items are not actionable by me, which means as 'news' it's as good tomorrow as Friday. There is something about how much info you can consume weekly vs. daily. That's a separate question though.
djrogers 9y ago
> This week: Nunberg subpoenaed, couldn’t stop blabbing; Kellyanne said to have violated ethics law; Carson realized HUD’s complicated; Cohn quit, over tariffs not anti-Semitism; Guy from UAE who knows stuff, cooperating w/Mueller; Trump tweeted there’s no chaos; It’s only Tuesday. If you consider all of that ‘news’ rather than mostly rumor and spectacle, then you probably fit in with the social media news crowd. I personally don’t see anything on that list that’s worthy of being called News, and certainly not anything I’d need to read about the day it happened. The closets might be the Mueller thing, but even that is technically hearsay until mueller’s next report comes out - then it’s news.

detritus 9y ago

I'm a big fan of The Economist and have bought and/or subscribed to it pretty much continuously for almost twenty years now (young old man that i am), but unless you're entirely beholden to its agenda, which I find very un-self-questioning - I'd suggest you offset its perspective with a 'complementary adversarial' weekly. Last time I swore off excess media consumption (about a decade ago) I kept on with The Economist and found I was 'drinking the Kool Aid' after a while.

bryananderson 9y ago
What would you recommend as a good complement to The Economist?
- detritus 9y ago
  To be honest, I'm not sure of a competing one-stop shop - I certainly didn't know when I last fasted from media. These days I do a daily scan of all the none-too-tabloidy newspapers (UK-based here), and on a weekly-or-so basis take in the likes of The Spectator, National Review and Foreign Affairs. - edit: I'm not going to lie - I could probably do with another breather - I'm unsure how much value I get from scouring all this crap.
- smacktoward 9y ago
  If you're looking for an explicitly adversarial complement, Jacobin might fit the bill: https://jacobinmag.com/ https://jacobinmag.com/ (Though it's quarterly rather than weekly, of course)
- thinkingemote 9y ago
  Newstatesman in the UK for a left wing weekly, politics centred periodical with minimal arts section and the book reviews are essentially ideological articles. the Spectator is more popular and a Tory/ right wing weekly with almost half of it devoted to culture, books, arts etc. I found the arts component of the Spectator to be relatively free of ideology. Recently I bought both and compared them. I found the writing quality in the newstatesman to be more variable, with a few Excellent and a few utterly awful articles. The Spectator is overall of good quality but nothing really stood out.