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I'm a firm believer in quality over quantity when it comes to news. Google News has gotten increasingly annoying though, forcing me harder toward the "personali
by yojo 5y ago
I'm a firm believer in quality over quantity when it comes to news. Google News has gotten increasingly annoying though, forcing me harder toward the "personalized" results, the kind of filter bubble I'm intentionally trying to avoid.
What worked well for me was getting a print subscription to the Economist. They definitely have a bias (particularly in their editorials), but it's mostly of the "free trade" variety, which is pretty easy to account for. On the other hand, their world coverage, particularly Africa and Middle East, is leaps and bounds better than anything you'll get online for free.
Plus the print medium is well suited for the wind-down time before bed, when I'm trying to disengage from screens. As a bonus, there's an exactly 0% chance you get click-baited into reading something inflammatory when you're consuming news on a piece of paper. Sadly they recently force-bundled print with digital, so you're stuck paying ~$80/year if you sign up during one of the frequent sales. $1.50/week is still well worth the cost of admission for me.
- env123 5y agoI have to say this again for the Economist fan girls here. It's still news, it may be more objective in tone and content than other publications, but it still influences negative thinking. Negative thinking is part of the job of global leaders or actual economists, so unless you're one, you're not doing yourself a favor
- raxxorrax 5y agoI think it is a good choice, but you should also read other journals. Even the wrong ones or especially the wrong ones. Only if you can detach yourself from the message of course, but it is valuable to see another angle. At least from time to time.
- falafelite 5y agoI also got frustrated with overly personalized results in Google News. I tried following a variety of sources on Twitter but that didn't work as well as I'd like either. I made my own topic-aligned news feed, and made a browser extension too (if you're reading an article online, it shows similar articles from other websites). Primarily a passion project, but I find it useful! Located here: https://www.nabu.news https://www.nabu.news
- codyb 5y agoI've been doing the World News at 6:30PM with Brian Muir on whatever channel 7-1 is on my antenna, the NYTime's morning newsletter, and then I read the print New Yorker. Then I come on HackerNews sometimes, but have dropped all social media and even my favorite news aggregator site Fark.com. Mainly the big thing is just not looking at the news on my phone which can be an incredible time sink, and also not looking at comments for news related articles. Even here on HackerNews which I generally consider to be a "wheat, not chaff, comment section" can get pretty low grade on anything with a political slant unfortunately. My opinion is, if I'm not going to do anything about it except yell at the people near me whether that's near me online, or near me in person, than there's no reason to get flustered about something. If I'm going to start calling my reps again, and hitting the streets, then it's good to be informed so I can express my view points and understand what I'm fighting for. Otherwise, it's just negative energy. I'm not going to fix the entire world, and having negative emotions about every single negative thing that's happening in a brutal world is... just too much.
- fma 5y agoGoogle News' most annoying thing now is they implemented infinite scroll.... FWIW I have a subscription to a major news paper + local to avoid the filter bubble. The major is a little conservative leaning and local a little liberal.
- petemcc 5y agoI've done exactly the same thing. Grew tired mid pandemic Y1 of the constant drone and misinformation, just a continuation of how it had been going already. Print and digital sub to the Economist and then "banned" myself from reading 24hr/live news sites. Has been interesting to see how many real life conversations I've been in ~18m in where I've been (anecdotally) better informed, or able to add colour (the recent events in Ukraine are a good example) that friends have totally missed hooked up to the daily drip. Interested to see if you find this also? I'm a huge fan of the more objective attitude of charts and figures, and a clear subjective opinion, often explicitly stated as "we think...".
- yojo 5y agoI've definitely noticed having more background knowledge on major events. My wife still takes all her news digitally (mostly NYT), and I'm able to add a lot of color to her understanding of events when we talk through news of the day. What's actually really surprising to me is how "not behind" my information normally is. I work my way through an issue over breakfasts and evenings in the course of the week, so my information is typically 2-9 days stale. It almost never matters.
- ethbr0 5y agoThe context seems to age fairly well. So even if you're not current, you're only missing that most recent piece. Vs online journalism doesn't seem to have the skill, or make the effort, to effectively set the news of the day in a well-summarized background.
- ROTMetro 5y agoI used to find the Economist great, but with the corrosiveness of everything this last bit, they seem to sneak agenda into articles now days in a way I feel like this whole post is trying to move away from. Maybe as a lost Libertarian who can't stand the control everyone's lives progressives I feel that has crept quite a bit into the Economist. It's funny it bothers me as I have reached a point where I feel Libertarianism just isn't compatible with the realities of the modern world as much as this child of hippies wishes it was and am looking for new understanding, but I always leave the Economist feeling like their American reporting on subjects I'm informed on is very manipulating which then makes me doubt their reporting on subjects I don't have enough context for deep personal understanding.
- andi999 5y agoDid you try the financial times? I sometimes find them shockingly unbiased.
- Justin_K 5y agoIn college we were required to get a subscription to FT and I found it quite liberal. As was the professor who required the subscription.
- wolverine876 5y agoHmmm ... they are certainly right of center afaict. If they are quite liberal, what do you call the vast landscape to the left of them? Who is a centrist?
- amanaplanacanal 5y agoThis may be a case where the word “liberal” means something different in the US than the rest of the English speaking world.
- secabeen 5y agoThe Economist is clearly not a Libertarian newspaper. They represent the classical liberal position, which is not Libertarian, and never has been.
- JacobThreeThree 5y agoI prefer an RSS reader with a personally curated list of news outlets.
- clay-dreidels 5y agoDo you have a feed list you would like to share? I just started using RSS again, and slowly building my list.
- Jaruzel 5y agoThis is exclusively how I consume the news. In fact, a good 50% of my feeds are 'World News' feeds from other countries. it's the best way to see alternate points of view I think, and then as a moderately intelligent[1] adult, I can form my own opinion on the current state of affairs. --- [1] I'm not allowed to call myself 'smart' on HN, I got told off for it on a previous comment ;)
- ishjoh 5y agoAs a point of encouragement don't let some random internet bully discourage you from using a perfectly fine word like smart or from diminishing your self image. For all we know you're the smartest person in the world.
- q_andrew 5y agoWhat are some good sites with RSS feeds? I was sad to see that Reuters doesn't have it.
- buffalobuffalo 5y agoI actually switched from google news to bing news, just because their user preference algorithms are so underdeveloped. So it's essentially like not being in a filter bubble.
- Melatonic 5y agoI would suggest subscribing to the Sunday delivery of a physical newspaper you like - when they know they can't just quickly update and edit an article online it definitely seems like they are more conscientious with what they are printing.
- buzzert 5y agoI've personally been enjoying the "Quartz Daily Brief"[0] as my sole source of news for many years. My favorite thing about it, besides the fact that it's relatively unbiased, is that it's also pretty light on the actual news part. Today's brief only has five articles of news, which is less than a screenful. Following that is a "deep dive" into a non-polarizing topic (today it's about Cricket), then a few "fun", non-emotionally manipulating, articles (e.g., a new Coca Cola flavor). Highly recommend it! And this is coming from someone who despises news, generally. [0]: https://qz.com/emails/daily-brief/ https://qz.com/emails/daily-brief/
- cyberlurker 5y agoDid you consider trying the new Coca Cola flavor?
- Swenrekcah 5y agoI can fully attest to the quality of the Economist but I caution anyone to subscribe because they don’t provide any way to easily unsubscribe. It’s either to call some phone number or attempt it via live chat. I tried the second option and the representative just went on with the script trying to fatigue me out of it, no matter what I said.
- dhimes 5y agoI cannot stand that dark pattern.
- mavhc 5y agoI just email to say I'm unsubscribing and then cancel the payment, if they want to send me free stuff, that's their problem
- yojo 5y agoI've always subscribed through a third party (DiscountMags) and it's been painless. In fact I've had the opposite problem, where my Economist doesn't show up one week and I start cursing the USPS until I realize it's because I forgot to renew. Hopefully the FTCs actions last year will put an end to the kind of cancellation hell you describe. At least for US customers anyway. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2021/10/ftc-ramp-enforcement-against-illegal-dark-patterns-trick-or-trap https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2021/10/ftc-r...
- brewdad 5y agoI also subscribe to The Economist through DiscountMags. They have a price lock feature now where they will auto-renew you at the same price as the previous term. I locked in a print+digital deal a couple years ago and now it's set and forget. Typically, they renew you about 2-3 months before the old expiration, so there's no risk of missing issues and any leftover time gets added onto the new subscription period. No affiliation, just a very satisfied customer.
- StevePerkins 5y ago
- ff317 5y agoMy personal favorite recommendation in this vein is The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ . They've got some great writers and editors and often deliver pretty unique insights. Their articles tend towards long-ish-form, but not nearly as long as e.g. the New Yorker. They're a little less world-focused and more US-centric, but not completely. There is some bias (isn't there always?), but I've seen them cover a single issue from multiple POVs using multiple writers before. They have a print edition as well, for ~$70/year (includes digital access as well).
- drenvuk 5y agoThe Atlantic. The New Yorker. The Economist. These are neutral to left facing. In a feeble effort to avoid being put in a different bubble, does anyone have something that an educated republican/conservative would read?
- lordgrenville 5y agoMy recommendation for that would be https://www.nationalaffairs.com/ https://www.nationalaffairs.com/ Thoughtful and driven by social science.
- mrkstu 5y agoRealclearpolitics has started providing some original content to go with their aggregation. Tends to be non-reactionary 'traditional' Republican leaning.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> The Atlantic. The New Yorker. The Economist. These are neutral to left facing. No, they aren’t, especially the Economist, which is aggressively center-right pro-capitalist.
- sosborn 5y agohttps://www.reuters.com/ https://www.reuters.com/
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mixedbit 5y agoAfter one year of subscribing to the Economist I like it, but would prefer if it was a monthly newspaper with 1/4 of the content. Reading it throughout each week takes quite a lot of my reading time and I have a feeling that dedicating this time to books would be better. Monthly with well selected topics would be enough to stay informed of important current issues.
- tonyedgecombe 5y agoI know what you mean which is why I tend to buy it every other week. I still haven't finished the Christmas issue. Some advice I picked up on HN which works well is to start at the back and make your way to the front.
- selectodude 5y agoI’ve been a subscriber for about fifteen years now. You triage the content. I rarely read more than half the magazine and that’s with spending >1hr on the subway every day.
- lostlogin 5y agoThings like Private Eye and (even worse) The London Review of Books have this issue. It's like having a bad debt and it weighs you down when you know you should deal to it.
- yojo 5y agoI definitely get a sinking feeling when I leave on vacation and come back to a two-issue backlog! There's more content in there than I typically consume in a week, so I've gotten more discerning on which articles I read. Skipping editorials, Britain, letters, and most columns seems to get it down to a manageable amount for my reading patterns. I also tend to skip any political coverage that's about what might happen in an upcoming election somewhere. I figure when it actually does happen I can read about it then.
- apricot 5y agoI used to feel vaguely guilty (in a "there-are-starving-children-in-Africa" kind of way) when I didn't read the entirety of the issue I had paid for, but eventually I realized it didn't make any sense. Sometimes I read almost the whole thing, but there are weeks when I skip more than 80% of the contents because of no time. One issue I'll always read cover to cover, though, is the Christmas special.
- swdunlop 5y agoYou can also get a non-customized version without resorting to dead trees -- the Economist is also published on Kindle. https://www.amazon.com/The-Economist-US-Edition/dp/B0027VSU9S https://www.amazon.com/The-Economist-US-Edition/dp/B0027VSU9... This trick probably works for other periodicals with a shady-as-hell internet filter bubble "feature."
- bnralt 5y agoIt seems like that still runs into the issues that are outlined in the blog post, however (not accomplishing anything, shallow conversations about current events, better ways to stay informed, and feeling like you're doing something when you're not). In general it's hard to overcome these issues as long as you're still reading something considered news. I think a good exercise is to spend a few weeks using archive.org to read the news from a few years back (or old back issues of The Economist, if you like). It's useful to see how many things people were obsessed over are now forgotten, and how many predictions ended up failing to materialize. We should also probably be honest with ourselves and admit that reading the news is mostly done for entertainment, and it very well might not be any better than people who spend their time reading celebrity gossip rags.
- yojo 5y agoThe article leads with drawing a distinction between pop news and more traditional journalism: "To be clear, I’m mostly talking about following TV and internet newscasts here. This post isn’t an indictment of journalism as a whole." Good print journalism does go into depth, it does give useful background, and it does teach you about the proximate causes of events. It is not full of pundits trying to score internet points or stoke outrage/fear for views/clicks. I think there's still value in having an informed population. If you don't have a good understanding of the state of the world it's going to be very difficult to change it in a deliberative and positive way. If you're informed you can make rational decisions on things like giving and voting. I don't know how you can do that otherwise. I'm not convinced there's a better way of getting an understanding of what's going on in the world than reading a well-curated digest of what's going on in the world. You can certainly go deeper on a subset of the topics via specialized outlets, or long-form books and articles, but good journalism should give you more than the superficial understanding of the issue. That said, I don't dispute that well-crafted journalism can be stimulating intellectual entertainment. If I didn't enjoy it, I probably wouldn't read it.
- bnralt 5y ago> The article leads with drawing a distinction between pop news and more traditional journalism: Sure, but I don't think it goes on to justify why that distinction is there. Particularly points 2 to 5 seem to work just as well as criticism of written media as TV. > If you're informed you can make rational decisions on things like giving and voting...I'm not convinced there's a better way of getting an understanding of what's going on in the world than reading a well-curated digest of what's going on in the world. I used to work a lot on politics at the local level and can't say that's been my experience. Much of the time, the things people's votes have the most impact on are barely covered in the media, or in many cases not covered at all. Including fairly important things, such as when our state party leadership suspended elections for two years and staying on past their terms. Almost zero news coverage. If you want to be informed and involved in ways that actually impact those around you, I'd say involvement in community organizations is important, reading the news not so much. As his fifth point says, it's easy to pretend you're being an informed citizen by indulging in a media habit when you're doing nothing of the sort. Another issue is that everyone can see how new organizations they don't like can leave people misinformed, but never consider that news organizations they like can do the same. Again, from what I've seen, misinformation is fairly common. It's not even necessarily done for nefarious purposes. A busy reporter might just have time to look at a press release, while local organizations will have people that often go into much more depth and look at the actual meeting minutes or the exact wording of particular pieces of legislation. People should think of concrete things they're trying to accomplish, not just vague notions of "being informed." I bet that someone who ignores the news and spends an hour looking at Vote411 and reading about candidates on the web before they fill out a ballot is going to make more informed voting decisions than a news junkie who follows national and international news 24/7, already knows who they're going to vote for at the national level, and completely ignores downballot races (a surprisingly large portion of voters fit this description).
- qiskit 5y ago> I'm a firm believer in quality over quantity when it comes to news When it comes to news, I'm of the opinion that one should strive for diversity of opinion rather than quality. As you noted, all media has a bias so you should see what everyone's biases are. You will never get truth from any single media outfit so cast a wide net. > What worked well for me was getting a print subscription to the Economist. Why would you pay for something that has ads? It would be like paying facebook for a facebook account.
- falafelite 5y agoI agree that diversity of opinion is important! I made https://www.nabu.news https://www.nabu.news for that exact reason. If I'm reading a NYTimes article and curious about what other sources might say, I just click on the Nabu browser extension to see what, for example, Fox News is saying about the same thing. Find it helpful for getting out of my echo chamber.
- _kulang 5y agoI think the side net thing would work better if there wasn’t so much garbage out there nowadays
- robertlagrant 5y ago> Why would you pay for something that has ads? It would be like paying facebook for a facebook account. Or paying to go to live sports when everything has ads on it.
- qiskit 5y agoIt's why I stopped watching football, baseball, basketball, etc. Used to be a huge sports addict. Such an incredible waste of time looking back. Now, I only watch ad free highlights, if that. But peak level of lunacy are the ad-ridden movie trailers on youtube. I can't believe people are actually watching ads in order to watch an ad...
- robertlagrant 5y ago
- pydry 5y ago>What worked well for me was getting a print subscription to the Economist. They definitely have a bias (particularly in their editorials), but it's mostly of the "free trade" variety, which is pretty easy to account for. On political issues they're also pretty firmly middle-of-the-road beltway, which is its own little bubble. I like this youtube channel a lot (Caspian Report): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwnKziETDbHJtx78nIkfYug https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwnKziETDbHJtx78nIkfYug It's partly because it delivers fairly objective analysis, but also because it puts heavy emphasis on how geography shapes how countries behave which is a blind spot of the economist/atlantic and the like.
- EGreg 5y agoHave you tried wikinews? Also see https://rational.app https://rational.app — we are building it. Feedback welcome !!!
- jsemrau 5y ago>Google News has gotten increasingly annoying though, forcing me harder toward the "personalized" results, I noticed same. While there is some relevance to personalized news they may or may not reflect what I am looking for at this point in time. Hence, I found that showing both (most noteworthy and most personal) actually helps me read the news better. https://imgur.com/a/pl7qf3M https://imgur.com/a/pl7qf3M
- knodi123 5y ago> Google News has gotten increasingly annoying though, forcing me harder toward the "personalized" results oh brother, you aren't kidding. I want top news of the day, but all I get is a hundred clickbait versions of two or three things I clicked on once a couple weeks ago.
- falafelite 5y agohttps://www.nabu.news/latest https://www.nabu.news/latest has the top news of the day with absolutely no personalized results, if you're looking for alternatives!
- Forgeties79 5y agoHonestly I think people put too much stock in (a very flawed notion of) biased vs unbiased. Everything has a bias. Everyone has a lens they perceive events through and you can’t write without that lens having an impact. I challenge anyone to present a truly “objective” piece of historical writing or news from any era.
- harry8 5y agoObjectivity is an ideal to be stived for. It's a reasonable point of view to suggest that striving for that ideal is worthwhile. When I think about no engineering design is a perfect trade-off, it becomes obvious that acknowledging this inevitable flaw does not make every trade-off equally useful. Some get closer to an ideal for the circumstance, usually they have to sweat to get there. And so it is with history and news reporting. The next error becomes "If these biased, partisan sources agree then it must be objectively true." Which leads to Raytheon being absolutely above criticism and disagreement with anything they're pushing as in their financial interests as worthy of being totally dismissed as "Being in league and on the payroll of Stalin or Bin Laden or Sadam Hussein or <insert latest evil bastard here>" Rather than being anlyzed on its actual merits or lack therof. In league with the enemy while showing zero evidence of it should be disqualifying as so biased that the source is totally compromised (by sheer idiocy if nothing else).
- eyelidlessness 5y agoObjectivity as an ideal often prompts people with otherwise good integrity to both-sides issues where one side is clearly malicious or dishonest. Objectivity isn't the goal of journalism and shouldn't be: truth and clarity should be.
- harry8 5y agoYou're using the word "Objectivity" with a very different meaning to me. "Truth and clarity" - this as an ideal IS objectivity. Not some half-baked, half-way position between competing lies which is anything but objectivity.
- andrepd 5y agoThe Economist is extremely biased. It's only that their bias is so "natural" to you that you don't even question it or even recognise it, it just seems part of objective reality. There's the "globalised neoliberal capitalism" bias you mention, but also the "US foreign policy" bias for instance. It certainly prevents you from seeing many things in an accurate light. There is no escaping it: you have to consume plural sources in order to be well-informed, otherwise you're subject to biases. Personally I stick to Reuters/AP + various newspapers.
- yojo 5y agoCan you expand on the “US foreign policy bias”? For the last couple years I feel like most of the Economist’s opinion of US policy could be summed up as “bungling”. E.g. they’re critical of the withdrawal from the TPP, the introduction of protectionist tariffs, the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the half-baked “Build Back Better World” counter to Belt and Road, pretty much all of recent immigration policy, etc. I’m having a hard time thinking of a recent US foreign policy move they seemed in favor of. Maybe the tougher stance against China? Or is the bias that they’re too critical of US foreign policy?
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoBusiness oriented publications work well for news because their biases tend to be of the “how can you make more money variety” as opposed to something catering to their reader/viewer’s cognitive biases (their readers want to make money, not fool themselves). Fooling yourself isn’t profitable, so why bother watching ideological conservative foxnews when time spent reading the conservative biz newspaper WSJ is much more productive?
- ozgune 5y agoQuick curiosity question. Why do you find The Economist’s coverage of Africa and the Middle East leaps and bounds better than others? Here’s why I’m asking. I find The Economist’s coverage of the US a 7/10 and Turkey a 3/10. Having lived in both for roughly the same time, The Economist’s coverage of the US feels vastly superior to that of Turkey. Yet, when I talk to my friends here, they say they read it for the international coverage. That always came to me as curious.
- yojo 5y agoHonestly it is the difference between having any coverage and none at all. If I just read stories from the front page of Google News I’d have no idea who Recep Erdogan was. I definitely wouldn’t have any idea of Turkeys current inflation woes or his constant firing of people who disagree with economic reality.
- mesh 5y agoJust wanted to respond and second the comment on the Economist. I have been reading it for a year, and it has really given me a much broader and more balanced view of what is going on in the world (including in the US). I really like getting a perspective on US events, from outside the US. It particularly nice because its a weekly with a subscription, so they don't have to be as click baitey with the titles and articles. For reference, I also read Washington Post / New York Time (not great, but some baseline whats going on), The Atlantic, Jacobin, Wired (not very good anymore), and when I have time National Review.
- dredmorbius 5y agoI took a somewhat "quantified web" approach to identifying quality informational sources. That included a number of media and news publications. Basis was the Foreign Policy top 100 global thinkers list. https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3hp41w/tracking_the_conversation_fp_global_100_thinkers/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3hp41w/trackin...