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Google News gives you precisely this portfolio of vendors. Why would anyone subscribe to a single news vendor? I'd also advise adding WION, Al Jazeera, Axios, a

Google News gives you precisely this portfolio of vendors. Why would anyone subscribe to a single news vendor? I'd also advise adding WION, Al Jazeera, Axios, and The Guardian + BBC.

makomk 5y ago
The Guardian and the BBC basically represent the same political faction as say the New York Times and CNN in the USA, except obviously with more focus on UK stories. You can even see the overlap when they report on stories from the other country.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  Inter-rater reliability is very useful. You don't simply seek novelty, right? Not having the vocabulary to discuss the agreement and disagreement of the BBC or the Guardian would be a mistake if you want to talk about news fluency, as they have made a name for themselves in the west.
  - unknown_error 5y ago
    The BBC and the Guardian do differ on takes, but both are very far cry from the right-leaning outlets. Both are part of the same left-leaning echo chamber in that nobody on the right trusts either source. Good luck getting a Breitbart/Newsmax reader to switch to even the NY Times or Reuters or AP, much less The Guardian.
smt88 5y ago
Google News is a dumpster fire. They include Sputnik and other govt propaganda sites from oppressive regimes.
- unknown_error 5y ago
  It's gotten significantly worse over time. Are there better alternatives that collate news, by topic, from multiple sources? Newsvoice was an app that tried to crowdsource that job instead of using algorithms. It very quickly became an alt-right cesspool, presumably because those are the same people who feel disenfranchised by FAKE NEWS LIBERAL MEDIA and so flock to alternative communities.
  - smt88 5y ago
    I just use Feedly and select sources that I trust. There's no other way to do it.
- axguscbklp 5y ago
  I do not see that as a problem. Most news media is at least to some extent propaganda and basically all of it is biased. At the end of the day, if I want truth then I have to evaluate each bit of news media for its credibility whether it comes from state funded propaganda or from some supposedly impartial organization. So what I want from an aggregator is to just show me relevant content without trying to sort it by credibility. I trust myself to sort news media by credibility much more than I trust any aggregator to sort it for me.
  - threatofrain 5y ago
    Yes, the utility of an aggregator is not to show you correctness, but to help you survey the landscape of narratives and trajectories. The utility of looking at multiple similar voices is to get a sense of the scale of a story, and inter-rater reliability; otherwise you have a portfolio of unweighted novelties.
unknown_error 5y ago
Al Jazeera, Guardian, BBC, etc. are all left of center by US standards, especially the Guardian (which is way left). Some center-right outlets that are still worth reading* (and I say this as a raging leftist): The Hill, National Review, Foreign Affairs, Wall Street Journal, The Economist *(as in they provide both informational "what's happening" and insightful analysis without venturing into flat out fake news... as long as you avoid their editorials and comments) I suppose those are "classically conservative" news outlets, as in "small government but with a general respect for evidence-based governance, science, and the truth". I don't know of any reputable populist-right/alt-right outlets. I don't know if there even IS a reputable populist-right/alt-right movement to begin with, but that's another discussion. Side note: Google News (as of a year or two ago, when they revamped their algorithms) unfortunately now also gives you a bunch of worthless blogs and fake news (the literal kind) outlets. I have hundreds of sources in my "never show this source" blacklist and even then it's barely usable. That said, it's still a useful way to see different takes on the same topic. Their grouping algorithm is a lot better than their vetting algorithm. Some of those sources should just not show up for anyone.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  If you don't like Google News, then you can go with the next best -- Apple News. But then you can see the consequence. Apple News has less crazy but sometimes misses entire stories. Google catches what Apple misses. For the purposes of understanding the news landscape, it is more important to know that a conversation exists and to estimate its trajectory, than it is to get correct takes.
  - unknown_error 5y ago
    I would if Apple ever publishes it on Android. They don't really believe in cross-platform =/ I only ever really make time for the news on the crapper. It's a nice way to compartmentalize. Plus it cleanses the soul... shit goes in, shit goes out. Current events are too depressing otherwise.

Google News gives you precisely this portfolio of vendors. Why would anyone subscribe to a single news vendor? I'd also advise adding WION, Al Jazeera, Axios, and The Guardian + BBC.

makomk 5y ago

The Guardian and the BBC basically represent the same political faction as say the New York Times and CNN in the USA, except obviously with more focus on UK stories. You can even see the overlap when they report on stories from the other country.

threatofrain 5y ago
Inter-rater reliability is very useful. You don't simply seek novelty, right? Not having the vocabulary to discuss the agreement and disagreement of the BBC or the Guardian would be a mistake if you want to talk about news fluency, as they have made a name for themselves in the west.
- unknown_error 5y ago
  The BBC and the Guardian do differ on takes, but both are very far cry from the right-leaning outlets. Both are part of the same left-leaning echo chamber in that nobody on the right trusts either source. Good luck getting a Breitbart/Newsmax reader to switch to even the NY Times or Reuters or AP, much less The Guardian.

smt88 5y ago

Google News is a dumpster fire. They include Sputnik and other govt propaganda sites from oppressive regimes.

unknown_error 5y ago
It's gotten significantly worse over time. Are there better alternatives that collate news, by topic, from multiple sources? Newsvoice was an app that tried to crowdsource that job instead of using algorithms. It very quickly became an alt-right cesspool, presumably because those are the same people who feel disenfranchised by FAKE NEWS LIBERAL MEDIA and so flock to alternative communities.
- smt88 5y ago
  I just use Feedly and select sources that I trust. There's no other way to do it.
axguscbklp 5y ago
I do not see that as a problem. Most news media is at least to some extent propaganda and basically all of it is biased. At the end of the day, if I want truth then I have to evaluate each bit of news media for its credibility whether it comes from state funded propaganda or from some supposedly impartial organization. So what I want from an aggregator is to just show me relevant content without trying to sort it by credibility. I trust myself to sort news media by credibility much more than I trust any aggregator to sort it for me.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  Yes, the utility of an aggregator is not to show you correctness, but to help you survey the landscape of narratives and trajectories. The utility of looking at multiple similar voices is to get a sense of the scale of a story, and inter-rater reliability; otherwise you have a portfolio of unweighted novelties.

unknown_error 5y ago

Al Jazeera, Guardian, BBC, etc. are all left of center by US standards, especially the Guardian (which is way left). Some center-right outlets that are still worth reading* (and I say this as a raging leftist): The Hill, National Review, Foreign Affairs, Wall Street Journal, The Economist *(as in they provide both informational "what's happening" and insightful analysis without venturing into flat out fake news... as long as you avoid their editorials and comments) I suppose those are "classically conservative" news outlets, as in "small government but with a general respect for evidence-based governance, science, and the truth". I don't know of any reputable populist-right/alt-right outlets. I don't know if there even IS a reputable populist-right/alt-right movement to begin with, but that's another discussion. Side note: Google News (as of a year or two ago, when they revamped their algorithms) unfortunately now also gives you a bunch of worthless blogs and fake news (the literal kind) outlets. I have hundreds of sources in my "never show this source" blacklist and even then it's barely usable. That said, it's still a useful way to see different takes on the same topic. Their grouping algorithm is a lot better than their vetting algorithm. Some of those sources should just not show up for anyone.

threatofrain 5y ago
If you don't like Google News, then you can go with the next best -- Apple News. But then you can see the consequence. Apple News has less crazy but sometimes misses entire stories. Google catches what Apple misses. For the purposes of understanding the news landscape, it is more important to know that a conversation exists and to estimate its trajectory, than it is to get correct takes.
- unknown_error 5y ago
  I would if Apple ever publishes it on Android. They don't really believe in cross-platform =/ I only ever really make time for the news on the crapper. It's a nice way to compartmentalize. Plus it cleanses the soul... shit goes in, shit goes out. Current events are too depressing otherwise.