I generally try to stay informed on current events. With the exception of what gets posted here, I normally get my news from CNN. I tend to lean left politically, but not always.
The problem I always run into is that every news site I read, regardless of where they stand on the political spectrum, is always filled with pointless bullshit. Specifically, sports, celebrity news, and product placement. “Some shitty pop singer is dating some shitty actor” or “These are our recommendations for the best mass-produced garbage-quality fast fashion from Temu” or “Some overpaid dickhead threw a ball faster than some other overpaid dickhead.”
What I’d love to find is a news source that’s just news that matters. No celebrity gossip, sports, opinion pieces, etc. Just real events that have an impact on some part of the world. Legislation, natural events, economic changes, wars, political changes, that kind of thing.
Does this exist, or is all journalism just entertainment?
News is a service that determines what’s newsworthy and summarizes it. You can’t do that without bias at some level.
Sounds like you’re looking for independent journalism, I’m in the same boat. I’ve found checking commondreams.org, scheerpost.com, therealnews.com, unicornriot.ninja, fair.org, thecanary.co, leftvoice.org, consortiumnews.com, labornotes.org, and popularresistance.org/news make for a great news feed. Those are an array of independent news outlets which keep it almost entirely just news. Setting up an RSS feed with these sites would be a solid move to ensure your getting news with none of the BS.
I would add Grist to that list for climate focused reporting.
I can recommend Reuters, given it still has a little bit of sports and opinion, but I find it’s good at providing neutral facts and sources it’s knowledge from appropriate experts for its opinion pieces.
It only lacks in providing local level news, where I turn to my country’s national broadcaster.
providing neutral facts and sources it’s knowledge from appropriate experts for its opinion pieces.
Such as Adrian Zenz. A guy who was paid by the BBC to make up absurd stories about China and who thinks god sent him on a mission to rid the world of gays and communists.
No idea about this dude, but literally in the article you link, they reference Zenz as an independent researcher who says:
“Although it is speculative…”
Before providing his estimate and also provides other details which appear to support the story, but the article does not present as clear, hard “facts”. Also, the title isn’t some clickbait trash, and even directly says “could”.
A guy who vows to destroy all gays isn’t “speculative”
Does it say that in the article? I don’t understand who this person is or why this discredits everything that Reuters as a news provider does.
Seconding Reuters. Their primary customers are other news agencies, so Reuters generally don’t add spin to a news article.
I guess AP is similar.
IIRC those are like the big two in reselling stories.
All media are biased. Some are open about their bias (communist media) and some are not (Wikipedia says it’s “neutral” but there’s a catch). Western media are all very polular and one-sided so I recommend reading english.news.cn.
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mintpressnews, the grayzone
1440 is what I use. It’s literally bare-bones news articles devoid of any opinion, just facts. They cover both US and international news, and have small culture and sports blips that aren’t click-baity. And it’s emailed to you every day. :)
I think what you’re describing is the need for RSS feeds. Generally, news outlets categorise their articles neatly so you subscribe with RSS to only headlines, or world events, or whatever. It requires you to have a look around the news site in question and setup RSS correctly.
The other neat thing is that you can read all your RSS feeds (ie multiple news sites) in one reader and there are tons of custom RSS apps.
I share your disdain for gossip and mainstream money grab promo. And ads. My god how much do ads suck.
It’s funny how often this is brought up and how the answer is that’s it’s been solved since nearly the begging of the web.
I’ve been using an RSS manager / server for decades! Right now it’s FreshRSS as the server and using Lire as a client on iOS. There’s arguably no better way to consume content.
I like Axios because it’s short form but has extended versions of I find it interesting enough to learn more.
I’ve had great experiences with reading socialist news sites. They tend not to care about ‘the spectacle’ and don’t like ads. Although you still have to avoid the ones like WSWS who just use it as a platform to call other socialists ‘pseudo-left’.
Side note: There’s a great famous analysis of the US media in the book Manufacturing Consent. You can find a PDF online, but at the very very very least you should read the Wikipedia summary. It explains the reasons why media organisations almost inevitably have some of these biases and bullshits.
Every news agency will have an inherent bias. There is no such thing as purely objective news without a perspective. However, you can learn to identify the biases, cross reference news with different sources, especially ones from different countries to see other perspectives, and then think about the topics yourself to get a deeper understanding.
Id probably use AP (Associated Press) since they seem to provide the least biased and most fact based reporting. However looking at their front page right now I see minimal content involving celebrities so it might not be your cup of tea.
Neither Reuters nor AP pass the Uyghur test. They may be less biased than others but they’re still fake news and propaganda outlets.
DW gets my vote
Sounds like you might just want the news without fluff.
I use AllSides as my main news source for federal news. Give them a try. The writing is succinct and gets straight to the point.
They give you news of the day in small chunks separated by topic. Each topic has a quick context, run down of what’s happening, and (my favorite) how the left right and center outlets are all covering it.
They also have an RSS feed (provided by Open RSS because they dont serve their own feeds. https://openrss.org/allsides.com
NPR News is probably what you’re looking for. sports and celebrity stuff is relegated to the Culture section, which is its own separate thing (although there are a couple of music stories that seem to have been misplaced). here is the RSS feed for the News section: https://feeds.npr.org/1001/rss.xml
