For progressive takes, I recommend Thomas Frank. Chris Hedges is also good in that he has coverage of working class issues, but like the rest of the alt-report

For progressive takes, I recommend Thomas Frank. Chris Hedges is also good in that he has coverage of working class issues, but like the rest of the alt-reporting crowd, there is a lot of strident oversimplification and too much crusading. The temptation to sensationalize and ignore contradictory data is just too great. For example, you can't just rant about "greedy healthcare industries" and expect to generate more light than heat. Healthcare is complicated, and cannot be boiled down to a couple of the seven deadly sins. . You can't view the world through a theological lense and be a good reporter. You can, however, view the world through a theological lense and get a lot of useful data. And that is ultimately the job of the reporter -- to provide useful data, understanding that it is just a small slice of reality, but an important slice that deserves to be made known. I would also put Robert Fisk in the same bucket -- I loved to read him, and enjoyed "Pity the Nation", but then he had all these extreme takes about china-petro-dollar conspiracies that made me groan. But still, he provided useful data that was a slice of reality. Greenwald, Taibbi, all these fall into the same bucket. Good on the ground stories, but ignore the sweeping conclusions.