June 16, 2012

thumbnail

Favorite news sources

by Nori
Categories: Economics, Energy, Feeding the Soul, Government, Politics, Social networking, Taxing the American Public, Wising up
Tags: No Tags
Comments: Comments Off

In my RSS feed (I use Bloglines as I’m still boycotting Google) I have over 30 hard and soft news sources.  I can get away with having this many because most don’t produce a lot of data daily.  For example, one of my favorite singers, Diana Krall, adds concert dates every couple months.  I subscribe so I know when she’ll be coming to our area.  The rest of the time the feed is empty.  Others, like Breitbart News, Daily Caller and Reason TV and Magazine, put out dozens of news items a day but I don’t read them all.  Many news feeds are all reporting on the same thing.  Much of it I can mark as read and move on.  Many of the sites are aggregate news sources (pulling news from other sites) which makes them a feed inside a feed.  I keep them on the list so I can get the newest news and follow the progress as the story develops or changes.  I get more of the big picture and I prune away any feed that can’t consistently report accurately.  I don’t have time for someone’s speculation.  That’s not news, that’s bias.

Here are some of my longest read feeds:

  • Cato Daily Podcast (my most favored feed)
  • Wall Street Journal (podcast, twice daily tech news briefing)
  • Cato (not prolific but interesting and educational informed commentary)
  • Libertarian News (rss for their US news aggregate only – see websites for other available feeds)
  • Breitbart News (a real hit and miss as much of this is a repeat if other news sources.  They chop one short video interview into multiple sound bite “stories” which is pretty irritating and some of their reporters can’t spell or use a dictionary (anyways not a word, and sherriff has only one r).  Despite that, Breitbart still rates highly with me as a news source.  They are also a member of the New Media.)
  • Reason TV/Magazine (libertarian commentary, some of it very good, some of it imminently skip-worthy)
  • Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom (not prolific but thought provoking)
  • Downsizing the Federal Government (reporting on unconstitutional action/legislation, waste, fraud.  The feed is not prolific but usually interesting)
  • Daily Caller (fairly comprehensive, includes in-house reporting)
  • The Washington Independent (Fed Gov’t news, mostly in-house reporting)
  • Spokesman (reporting on Washington State legislators and legislation)
  • Supreme Court of Washington (WA State SC)
  • Public Sector (highlighting Public Sector Union waste/fraud/mismanagement and general self-serving duplicity/stupidity)
  • Freedom Foundation (small government commentary/news)
  • Liberty Live
  • Ron Paul 2012 (the philosophy, the rallies, the videos, the supporters)
  • CNS News (about a dozen items a day, mostly a repeat of other sources.  I’ll eventually prune this feed as it’s mostly a skip/mark as read.)

I also have a couple websites I visit daily.  After the top two, the rest on the list are for a slow news day or if I need a different slant on something breaking.

  • Townhall Cartoons (good political cartoons from a conservative viewpoint – weekdays only)
  • Drudge Report (news aggregate. Drudge was the seed for the New Media with the breaking of the Lewinsky story.  Epic.)
  • Libertarian News (a dot org with comprehensive news – includes categories for Sci/Tech (good comprehensive coverage), national news (CNN, Fox, BBC, Reuters, AP and Al Jazeera) world news (same list of sources) and tabloid headlines (the total superficial including Yahoo and The Daily Mail from Britain)
  • Newsmax Breaking News (conservative news, usually fairly stodgy)
  • Olympia Watch (Washington State political)
  • National Journal

Add to that a couple inspirational sites like Daily Good and Gimundo, a couple DIY sites (Make and One Project Closer) and one health specific (Celiac.com) and I’ve got a pretty well rounded source for news every day.  I just have to stay aware that much of what I read is someone’s personal, and occasionally not very learned, opinion.  And I have the Daily Mail tabloid news when I need to check on fashion and the slow motion train wreck of celeb’s lives on slow news days.  How could I possibly get through life without knowing which celebs have saggy knees!  <rolls eyes>  For the real girly, I check out shoepr0n on Tumbler where the only topic is fashion footwear.  With all that, who needs TV news?

Once you start an RSS feed you’ll find you do a lot of feed pruning until you’ve developed a comfortable volume with an array of content.  As you use the feed, you’ll get a feel for what is slanted by the author or site’s inclination to disaster-monger and you will find yourself weeding out the worst until you have a fairly reliable source for ALL the news.  Your perception will change when you are no longer restricted to just what the main stream media feels you should know.