6 ms·

I'll come out of my shell a few times a week and won't understand what's going on. News sites just tell me the last 18 hours' worth of updates... So... I either

I'll come out of my shell a few times a week and won't understand what's going on. News sites just tell me the last 18 hours' worth of updates... So... I either disengage entirely and can't carry on a conversation or I stay engaged and worry about events I cannot affect. I'd like a "I haven't checked the news in [7] days and some guy at work mentioned [Ukraine talking to the UN], what's that all about?" website. I guess it'd be 7 days worth of news synopses for the topic. [7 days ago this city fell, Joe said stern words about it, and the Sauds started selling oil in Yuan because it didn't want China to get all its oil from Russia.] [6 days ago that city was retaken, and everyone was surprised.] [5 days ago Joe said more stern words but had no effect.] etc.

alexmingoia 5y ago
This is why https://sumi.news https://sumi.news is grouped/filtered by day. I like to browse by day once or twice a week.
ljlolel 5y ago
Can just read the Economist weekly. Their articles are very brief but well written summaries.
- airstrike 5y ago
  Also heavily editorialized with a sharp left / European bias
  - groby_b 5y ago
    The Economist is many things, but "sharp left" it is only to a certain subset of people. The rest of the world would mostly call it "left-leaning", or maybe "radical centrist".
    - jazzyk 5y ago
      Perhaps more like globalist/corporatist, which reflects their recent ownership? In 2015, Pearson - a publishing company - sold its controlling stake to a bunch of corporate owners, like the Agnellis (43%) and the Rotschilds (21%), among others. The change in their editorial direction was immediately visible (I had been a subscriber/reader for 35+ years until 2016) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Group
      - groby_b 5y ago
        I wouldn't argue with that one, either. But it's also not "hard left" :) The word - if we're willing to shed many of the more populist overtones around it - is probably "neoliberalism". Consistently siding with money & corporations, with a democratic bent. (But not too much!) Since 2016, it's more and more living on its reputation and not coming quite to terms with the changes in the world. It is still firmly rooted in facts - can't really provide economic guidance when you deny realities - but it seems somewhat unable to engage with the rise of populism and nationalism in an economically intertwined world. Not unlike centrism :)
        airstrike 5y ago
        Sharp left, not hard left :) Think of it like a sharp taste, as in "distinct", "memorable"
        groby_b 5y ago
        It's not distinctly or memorably left, either. It really, really isn't. It's milquetoast centrist with a helping of globalism, and a good chunk of neoliberalism. You won't see it calling to defund the police, or that we should tax the bejeezus out of billionaires. And these are moderately left, not memorably left.
      - mediaman 5y ago
        The Rothschilds have had a substantial stake in the Economist for 70 years, including prior to the time when Pearson was a shareholder. Pearson did not control the board, had only 6 of the 13 board seats, and never had majority control of the company. It's unclear what is meant by "corporate owners;" Pearson is a publicly traded corporation. I'm also a long-time subscriber and do not understand the "shift" you are referring to. The Economist has been pro-free-trade, generally against heavy regulation, and a magazine that consistently takes small-l liberal positions for a very long time. That stance means that sometimes they are right - deregulation has been good in many areas - but sometimes they get it wrong, when, for example, free trade may have adverse effects. Sometimes they take positions that are bad - they argued for the second Iraq war - but they are pretty up front about their biases, and generally don't represent their biases as purely objective facts, as many traditional newspapers do. Their writing is clear and concise and is not meant to be consumed uncritically. The magazine is still unparalleled for what it offers.
dwiel 5y ago
I've actually found that Improve the News [1] is good for something like that. It has sliders to let you select what kind of new you are looking for with one of the sliders which controls "shelf life" ranging from short to long and "recency" from evergreen to recent. Not exactly what you are looking for, but I've found it can serve a similar purpose. [1] https://www.improvethenews.org/ https://www.improvethenews.org/
- inanutshellus 5y ago
  Wow, that's super neat. Thank you for sharing.
- kgwxd 5y ago
  I think that left/right categorization thing actually makes it worse. I'd like a "just the facts" option.
  - inanutshellus 5y ago
    I used to think the same, but eventually realized that both "facts" and, perhaps most especially, the omission-of-coverage categorize a journal as left or right... Even the words a journal uses are dog whistles for "we think alike". "Latinx" versus "Latino". "Illegal Immigrant" vs "Undocumented Worker".
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
droopyEyelids 5y ago
I believe you'd have a far more satisfying and productive time coming out of your shell if you redirected Joe's conversation to asking about him, or his kids, or his hobbies- keeping it local like the article concludes. Unless it's your job, neither of you really understand whatever is happening with Ukraine and your conversation will be mostly limited to repeating what you've been told to each other, which doesn't enrich either of your lives.
- watwut 5y ago
  I think that OP meant Joe Biden. Timeline checks out. It is unlikely OP is in position to talk about presidents kids and hobbies. > Unless it's your job, neither of you really understand whatever is happening with Ukraine and your conversation will be mostly limited to repeating what you've been told to each other, which doesn't enrich either of your lives. A bit of very practical issue here is that Russian troll force is in full force right now, at least where I live. Trying to affect general opinion of people, in order to influence future elections and to make NATO/Eu passive due to pressure from population. The money were in fact flowing from Russia toward our right-wing nearly fascist or clearly fascist parties. I dont think "everyone else should be passive" is good strategy here.
  - droopyEyelids 5y ago
    this is the the same with every piece of news
- tchocky 5y ago
  The Ukraine example might be true for a non-european country, but as a European in these times I want to be informed. I want to help refugees and the victims of war (either by donating or giving shelter for some days). If I wouldn't know things from the news, I wouldn't know about these things. Knowing in what direction world events might change is good to be at least mentally prepared when things turn worse. It doesn't have to be checking the news 24/7 but checking it once a day for the important parts I think it's important. I would rather say people need to learn how to distance themselves from the news a bit to keep a healthy mental state with all the things happening right now.
sjmulder 5y ago
There's an "out of the loop" reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/outoftheloop https://old.reddit.com/r/outoftheloop It's not quite for this use case but could be of help. I regularly use it to find out what that thing is people are joking about on Twitter or such.
- mdoms 5y ago
  This is an awful subreddit. It's mostly used for catching up on stupid Youtube/Twitch drama or asking why some other subreddit has been banned/locked/quarantined. On real stories the answers are very often very misinformed.
twic 5y ago
Wikipedia's current events portal goes back one week, and there's a link at the bottom to more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
- webscout 5y ago
  https://biztoc.com https://biztoc.com and https://upstract.com https://upstract.com pull in some news from there.
superbaconman 5y ago
There are usually news programs on Sunday that will go over the past weeks worth of news. I like Bloomberg radio, which airs like 3 or 4 different weekly recap shows on that day.

alexmingoia 5y ago

This is why https://sumi.news https://sumi.news is grouped/filtered by day. I like to browse by day once or twice a week.

ljlolel 5y ago

Can just read the Economist weekly. Their articles are very brief but well written summaries.

airstrike 5y ago
Also heavily editorialized with a sharp left / European bias
- groby_b 5y ago
  The Economist is many things, but "sharp left" it is only to a certain subset of people. The rest of the world would mostly call it "left-leaning", or maybe "radical centrist".
  - jazzyk 5y ago
    Perhaps more like globalist/corporatist, which reflects their recent ownership? In 2015, Pearson - a publishing company - sold its controlling stake to a bunch of corporate owners, like the Agnellis (43%) and the Rotschilds (21%), among others. The change in their editorial direction was immediately visible (I had been a subscriber/reader for 35+ years until 2016) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Group
    - groby_b 5y ago
      I wouldn't argue with that one, either. But it's also not "hard left" :) The word - if we're willing to shed many of the more populist overtones around it - is probably "neoliberalism". Consistently siding with money & corporations, with a democratic bent. (But not too much!) Since 2016, it's more and more living on its reputation and not coming quite to terms with the changes in the world. It is still firmly rooted in facts - can't really provide economic guidance when you deny realities - but it seems somewhat unable to engage with the rise of populism and nationalism in an economically intertwined world. Not unlike centrism :)
      - airstrike 5y ago
        Sharp left, not hard left :) Think of it like a sharp taste, as in "distinct", "memorable"
        groby_b 5y ago
        It's not distinctly or memorably left, either. It really, really isn't. It's milquetoast centrist with a helping of globalism, and a good chunk of neoliberalism. You won't see it calling to defund the police, or that we should tax the bejeezus out of billionaires. And these are moderately left, not memorably left.
    - mediaman 5y ago
      The Rothschilds have had a substantial stake in the Economist for 70 years, including prior to the time when Pearson was a shareholder. Pearson did not control the board, had only 6 of the 13 board seats, and never had majority control of the company. It's unclear what is meant by "corporate owners;" Pearson is a publicly traded corporation. I'm also a long-time subscriber and do not understand the "shift" you are referring to. The Economist has been pro-free-trade, generally against heavy regulation, and a magazine that consistently takes small-l liberal positions for a very long time. That stance means that sometimes they are right - deregulation has been good in many areas - but sometimes they get it wrong, when, for example, free trade may have adverse effects. Sometimes they take positions that are bad - they argued for the second Iraq war - but they are pretty up front about their biases, and generally don't represent their biases as purely objective facts, as many traditional newspapers do. Their writing is clear and concise and is not meant to be consumed uncritically. The magazine is still unparalleled for what it offers.

dwiel 5y ago

I've actually found that Improve the News [1] is good for something like that. It has sliders to let you select what kind of new you are looking for with one of the sliders which controls "shelf life" ranging from short to long and "recency" from evergreen to recent. Not exactly what you are looking for, but I've found it can serve a similar purpose. [1] https://www.improvethenews.org/ https://www.improvethenews.org/

inanutshellus 5y ago
Wow, that's super neat. Thank you for sharing.
kgwxd 5y ago
I think that left/right categorization thing actually makes it worse. I'd like a "just the facts" option.
- inanutshellus 5y ago
  I used to think the same, but eventually realized that both "facts" and, perhaps most especially, the omission-of-coverage categorize a journal as left or right... Even the words a journal uses are dog whistles for "we think alike". "Latinx" versus "Latino". "Illegal Immigrant" vs "Undocumented Worker".
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

droopyEyelids 5y ago

I believe you'd have a far more satisfying and productive time coming out of your shell if you redirected Joe's conversation to asking about him, or his kids, or his hobbies- keeping it local like the article concludes. Unless it's your job, neither of you really understand whatever is happening with Ukraine and your conversation will be mostly limited to repeating what you've been told to each other, which doesn't enrich either of your lives.

watwut 5y ago
I think that OP meant Joe Biden. Timeline checks out. It is unlikely OP is in position to talk about presidents kids and hobbies. > Unless it's your job, neither of you really understand whatever is happening with Ukraine and your conversation will be mostly limited to repeating what you've been told to each other, which doesn't enrich either of your lives. A bit of very practical issue here is that Russian troll force is in full force right now, at least where I live. Trying to affect general opinion of people, in order to influence future elections and to make NATO/Eu passive due to pressure from population. The money were in fact flowing from Russia toward our right-wing nearly fascist or clearly fascist parties. I dont think "everyone else should be passive" is good strategy here.
- droopyEyelids 5y ago
  this is the the same with every piece of news
tchocky 5y ago
The Ukraine example might be true for a non-european country, but as a European in these times I want to be informed. I want to help refugees and the victims of war (either by donating or giving shelter for some days). If I wouldn't know things from the news, I wouldn't know about these things. Knowing in what direction world events might change is good to be at least mentally prepared when things turn worse. It doesn't have to be checking the news 24/7 but checking it once a day for the important parts I think it's important. I would rather say people need to learn how to distance themselves from the news a bit to keep a healthy mental state with all the things happening right now.

sjmulder 5y ago

There's an "out of the loop" reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/outoftheloop https://old.reddit.com/r/outoftheloop It's not quite for this use case but could be of help. I regularly use it to find out what that thing is people are joking about on Twitter or such.

mdoms 5y ago
This is an awful subreddit. It's mostly used for catching up on stupid Youtube/Twitch drama or asking why some other subreddit has been banned/locked/quarantined. On real stories the answers are very often very misinformed.

twic 5y ago

Wikipedia's current events portal goes back one week, and there's a link at the bottom to more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events

webscout 5y ago
https://biztoc.com https://biztoc.com and https://upstract.com https://upstract.com pull in some news from there.

superbaconman 5y ago

There are usually news programs on Sunday that will go over the past weeks worth of news. I like Bloomberg radio, which airs like 3 or 4 different weekly recap shows on that day.