Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Where do you get your news?

Every news outlet has bias of some sort, and it can be hard to know who to trust. Not to mention that some news organizations seem more interested in Britney Spears than any other topic! So I'm curious - what websites do you go to for relevant news you can trust? I'm interested in hearing from FoLCs from all over!

I prefer to get my news from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. They do cover actual news stories, but they make them far more palatable than straight-up news shows. I find that otherwise, keeping up with what's going on just gets me really upset about things I'm not in a position to change.

For websites, though, I prefer the Associated Press . It's where most of the other news sites get their news anyway, and given the collaborative, non-profit nature of the organization, they do manage to be relatively unbiased.

Like Paul, I enjoy both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. While there is a liberal slant to both shows, they skewer the left just as much as the right. I usually have the early local news on when I get home from work while I'm fixing dinner. Later that night I'll try to catch the nightly news on BBC America. They do a much more in-depth view of each story instead of a 1-2 minute blurb. On the web, I check out CNN, Slate and BBC News.

Because I only have basic cable I have to go online for all my news. I usually check out Fox!news, Michelle Malkin, The Drudge Report, Little Green Footballs and KTLK 100.3. For humor I like IMAO

Mind you, my basic cable does have msnbc, but everytime I hear chris matthews or keith olberman talk, I get this righteous urge to throw a brick through my TV.

TEEEEEEEEJ

I keep away from all news... except the weather channel.

News is either discouraging (war, catastrophies, etc) or they'll report about celebs like it's a very important thing and gloss over the things that have some actual impact on real people.

Or, worse, news-reports are filled with silly things that are elevated to very important status when in fact there really isn't anything newsworthy about it and it's not worth more than two lines at the bottom of a newspaper page, if at all.

Example: when I was doing my internship, as a reporter for a TV station, I was asked to interview the parents of a young kid who had been mauled by a pit-bull -- I refused. This isn't news, it's sensationalism and there's not need to show images of a 5-year-old with bandages on her face while we ask her parents how it makes them feel...!!!! If you pass a law against people owning these dogs, then THAT would be news and then we could ask these people their opinion about it. BLAH!

I figure, if anything truly important happens, I'll hear about it from someone...

Mostly BBC News 24, the BBC's news channel.

I subscribe to a Swedish daily, Sydsvenskan, which I regard as right-wing. For example, while the Swedish population was strongly against the war on Iraq, Sydsvenskan insisted that Saddam was indeed an immediate threat to the whole world because of his weapons of mass destruction. Also, Sydsvenskan argued that a war against Iraq had a very good chance of bringing peace, stability and democracy to the Middle East.

I also subscribe to the internet edition of the New York Times, and I check out its headlines and read some of its articles every day.

I often check out the internet edition of USA Today.

I regularly check out the internet editions of Time and Newsweek.

I sometimes check out the internet edition of The Guardian, to see what is going on in Great Britain.

I usually watch the six o'clock news on Swedish public service TV, channel 2. I sometimes watch the 6.30 news on Danish public service TV, channel 1. I should point out that politics and public opinion in Denmark is generally more right-wing in Denmark than it is in Sweden. Denmark was for a long time one of the United States' most loyal allies in Iraq. Denmark is also one of the most, if I may use that word, Islamophobic countries in Europe. I was not surprised when the Danish daily, Jyllandsposten, published a number of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed which provoked riots in several Muslim countries some years ago. Recently a plot against one of the Danish cartoonists by Muslim extremists was uncovered in Denmark, and in a show of sympathy, almost all Danish dailies published the cartoons all over again. Predictably, the Muslim protests against Denmark returned. A few days ago, Osama bin Laden himself threatened all of the European Union because of Denmark and because of the Pope.

Osama bin Laden threatens EU over Danish cartoons

When I commute, there are often Danish dailies left on on the train, and I often leaf through them.

The school where I work subscibes to Sweden's two most prestigious dailies, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet, and I leaf through them almost every day. Both these publications are right-wing.

I also listen to two top-quality weekly radio programs on Swedish public radio, Konflikt (Conflict) and Godmorgon, världen! (Good morning, world.) Konflikt is a program that makes in-depth interviews with people of different political beliefs. Yesterday, for example, the program concentrated on describing political opinion in Israel. Various Israelis in Israel with various political agendas were interviewed, and two Swedish Jews commented on what was said. Godmorgon världen is a program that comments on news from different parts of the world every week.

I no longer read Reader's Digest, but I grew up reading that publication. It had an enormous influence on my early political beliefs. Reader's Digest in the sixties was full of articles about the horrors committed by Communists. I read some of them, and they were totally scary. There were also not so few articles with headlines such as "Why We Are in Vietnam". I never read them, because them seemed boring and preachy to me. This resulted in the fact that I managed to stay totally ignorant of the Vietnam War throughout the 1960s! I'm not kidding you. But I remember a story that I once read in Reader's Digest about a man who was for some reason far, far away from home. He and a number of other men were walking across a muddy field, and I sure wondered what on earth they were doing there. Then suddenly there was an explosion, and the guy who was telling the story fainted. He woke up in a hospital and was told that he had lost his left foot. He was sent home, was fitted with a prosthetic device, learnt to walk again, got a good job, got married and had children. The story ended by the narrator telling us, "God Bless America!". I can't tell you how confused I was!

Ann

Mostly BBC News 24 on TV and their website - armed always with a healthy dose of scepticism. Like most UK news sources, they can be as guilty of peddling the government/establishment line as any other.

I've always been fairly healthily suspicious of news sources - I haven't bought a newspaper for decades because they used to drive me up the wall with their bias - but during the firefighter's strike here in the UK some years back, I was made aware of just how wide a gap there was between truth and journalism at times. Being involved in the background of the strike, my jaw dropped most days as I heard the news reported with almost no relation to fact or what was actually going on. It became a little like Alice in Wonderland, with what was being reported having no connection to the reality I was living at the time, and I've never believed much of anything on the news since. I quite often go searching on the net for the source of a news item to get behind the headlines.

Too often these days, imo, journalists just take what is handed them - especially by governments - and report it verbatim, never questioning its content. The Pilgers of the past - the true investigative reporters - are few and far between and many TV news reporters aren't worthy to hold the name imo. Plus, I have a real problem with how close political reporters are to their source. IMO, it's never good when the people who are supposed to be scrutinising politicians are invited to their daughter's wedding or Christmas parties.

And I get hugely irritated by how much dross is included as 'news'. One of my pet peeves is promos for the channel's documentaries or current affairs programmes masquerading as a news item. The inclusion of entertainment news drives me up the wall. There was a study done, I recall, several years back that showed that once you stripped away all the 'filler' items on TV news programs, you were left with a tiny percentage of actual hard news. It doesn't seem to have improved any, since.

I like to watch Channel 4 news - I find it's the one I trust most and I like the fact that, with its hourly format, it can take its time to do more in-depth reporting on the day's news. In the second half of the program, it often brings up new issues not touched by the others. Over the years, it's been responsible for bringing us stories that other news sources pick up and run with the next day. It does have a tendency to hysteria though, now and then. But it's probably the one that least has me wanting to throw a brick through the TV as I watch.

Oh and I agree - shows like The Daily Show and - here in the UK, the inferior but sometimes on the button The Late Edition - are often the only 'news' shows which are actually asking the same questions that I am of the politicians. Which is somewhat sad when you think about it....

LabRat

Some of the websites I trawl for news include the CBC, CNN, FOX, BBC, CTV, NewsNow, Boing Boing, MetaFilter,etc. I don't really find any source very accurate and since getting involved in the local/regional press industry, find that I'm getting more and more skeptical of the news that is out there but I do need to keep in touch with that is happening around the world so I read them anyhow and filter out as much of the b-s as possible.

I watch the Colbert and Daily show but they tend not to be as funny unless you actually know what is going on in the news.

During the day I usually get news from CNN and Google News.

I also get a healthy dose from www.fark.com They are a site who lets people submit links and comment on the stories. Sometimes they are very newsworthy stories and something they are just silly. Either way I get a pretty well rounded news diet.

Honestly, news usually just depresses me. I scan the cnn.com headlines to keep up with major events, but other than that, I don't really read or watch much as far as the news.

Come to think of it, I have *no* idea.
I don’t watch TV and I’m not scanning the internet for news. I think, mostly I get informed by friends telling me (in real life or in their blogs) or people discussing these topics at message boards.
Or sometimes the TV is on and I catch some news while actually doing something else.

And I really wish I'd be more informed about what's happening but I can't drag myself to actively go looking for news.
And, well, so far it worked fine, so...

I usually listen to NPR on the way to/from work, catch just a little of the BBC, The News Hour or Marketplace (via NPR), but it's not daily. Every once in a while, I'll catch the headlines on google news or msn.com.

For humor, I listen to "Wait, Wait, Don't tell Me," the NPR news quiz on Saturday mornings. It's a funny way to catch up the week's news.
BJ

NPR, CNN, BBC. I actually see a fair amount of news on a variety of channels, based on who's in the room with me and where I am. It's an election year, so I'm all ears all the time.

I used to listen to it 24/7, and that got to be a bit much. It's easier now that I can pick and choose what news I want to pay attention to.

I also read papers/go to websites, depending on time. NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, El Pais, El Tiempo, Le Monde...I have learned that my colleagues a wonderful source of news. They weed out all the things I don't care about (like Brit), and only forward things I may actually care about. Let them do the filtering for me, I say!