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Alternative news source recommendations
I have a specific focus in mind here. Not sure if it even exists, but let's ask.
So, we all know there's a news cycle, and everyone follows it. That's my "alternative" focus here ... I want that news outlet that explicitly, assertively, goes out of its way, to not follow it. Whatever everyone else is reporting on, those Top 10 stories on every other front page, these guys skip right over those.
I'm looking for that news agency that does those "hey, remember that thing in the news 6 months ago? Whatever happened with that?" stories. The agency that says, "So, have you heard enough about the war in Iran yet? Well, guess what's going on in Honduras today".
Things that don't count ...
- Not looking for extremist, or conspiracy theorist sites.
- Not looking for sites that focus on a particular region or subject matter (mostly Ukraine, mostly financial news, mostly Green/Climate news, etc).
- Not looking for highly opinionated or partisan sites -- everyone leans one way or another, I know, but looking for sites that aim to be objective.
- Not looking for deep dives into the same news cycle ("Who is Mojtaba Khamenei, Really?").
So ... any tips?
I think you are looking for "slow journalism" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Journalism)?
I found this site: https://www.slow-journalism.com/ but I am not a reader. Still this is picking my interest too. So I will try to look at other answers.
But more generally, I think, even the concept of "news" is not very compatible with how I operate.
It is ok to have an overview of what is going on in the world. But the news are very bad for that purpose because they focus on what will make people react the most. I think, on a full year, no more than 3 events are really worth my immediate attention. Everything else should be better learned via books, long documentaries.
In fact, news were the first "attention grabbers" and this is generally not good for my mental health.
At a time I completely shut off the news, and only followed radio station talking about unrelated subjects. Like philosophy, or some independant stories. And when you do this, you don't loose much.
If a news is really worth your attention, people around you will talk about it anyway.
In reference to the slow journalism publication you linked. I was a subscriber for almost 3 years. It's UK based and much of the news is focused in that direction, but there are also a lot of world news stories. It's released quarterly with a few page section dedicated to summarizing the headlines for the last 3 months. Then there are deeper dives into other news topics and random pop culture factoids. I really enjoy the writing but it feels more like a quarterly magazine that news to me and was just a bit pricey for where I'm at. I'd love to support them again in the future though!
The following are probably not exactly what you're looking for, but because I've been wanting to recommend them as alternative sources for news, I'm going to mention them anyway. Actually, one is a solid recommendation and the other is something I'd like my fellow Tildeites to review and give comments on.
Heather Cox Richardson is a political historian who discusses the current events (from the US angle) that everyone else is discussing, with some key differences: she includes viewpoints and topics I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else and she explains the key factors of the legal system around each topic so that I can actually follow along even though I'm not familiar with US politics that deeply myself. She doesn't shy away from 'boring but important', for example the Boundary Waters sulfide mining vote in Minnesota. For this reason I would classify her as an alternative source.
In the video I linked above, she follows her usual framework where she answers viewers' questions, but then she also weaves in an alternative version of a 'State of the Union' speech because not much leadership could be expected from the Tantrum Tyrant. If the thing is too long to watch in its entirety, I recommend this part in the end because it gave me hope, and it did so in a credible, non-fluffy way. See it especially if you are American! (But also if you are from somewhere else and developing resentment towards Americans due to their incompetent and immoral leaders.)
Downside: very prolific, doesn't edit her material much so it gets slightly rambly and long-form (but even her rambly mind is strikingly acute and its workings a pleasure to witness!).
Upside: no visual content so you can just listen to these while doing chores, sports, whatever.
ETA: She also fact-checks the Tantrum Tyrant and his regime in real time without losing track - a skill very much needed in these trying times of ubiquitous misinformation.
On to the second one:
[House of El](https://www.youtube.com/@HouseofEl/videos)From the description:
My gripes with this channel: her titles are unnecessarily inflammatory and it makes me think the content may not be fact-based, although I can't immediately pinpoint things about it that are false (but I'm also not an expert in this field). Her scripts sound AI-generated to the point of ticking me off. I'm not saying that they are, they just come with a lot of "It's not this, it's that" and other similarly overused structures. Maybe using AI helps her post more often or something and I'm willing to tolerate that if I can otherwise trust that she is a real person with real knowledge who carefully fact-checks her content before recording it. But I'm not entirely sure if I should. I'd love for someone to take a look and comment on this!
The reason I wanted to mention it here is because I just saw this rant from you and I think this channel's content may provide some relief: Europe seems to be acting in resistance, to a greater extent that I myself was aware of before. (You're still right that EU countries are guilty of colonialism too.)
I know I said two channels but I want to add a third one, even though it may be known by many on Tildes already and it's also focused on a hot topic: Pivot to AI. David Gerard posts a short, AI-related news story almost daily, with the aim to be as truthful as possible but often with a dose of lighthearted sarcasm.
You bet! I can't really tell if house of el is completely AI generated - models are so lifelike now that it's a complete game of chance - but I'm very skeptical of the quality of the reporting.
Here's a basic example: the video "Denmark JUST Authorized SHOOTING US Troops - NATO Ally Prepares for WAR With America."
The source she's citing, Euronews, visibly in the screenshot, talks about how according to a law from 1952 Danish troops fire back when attacked. Danish journalists asked the Danish ministry of defense if that law remains in place and they said "yep." As you can see in that article, it's not at all sensational.
I didn't watch the whole video and that was the only one I examined. Maybe it's uncharacteristically sensational/biased and the rest of the content is fine, but frankly just looking at the titles I'm rather skeptical.
Thanks. I've also been considering whether the person might be AI generated. The channel is definitely attractive to someone like me who would like to see a more euro-centric perspective on the flood of political topics that originate in the US but affect us all. Or it would be, were it legit.
Another item that adds to my suspicion: she's mentioning a book she wrote but it doesn't seem to have a real person's name as the author, just the channel name. Why would any credible human do that?
(I'm giving this a bit more time before calling it and then I'll probably remove the recommendation from my comment.)
A lot of the discussion of her online seems to land on them thinking she's real (though questioning her credentials - is that because she's a woman or because they're sketch, idk) but that she is probably using AI in some way to maintain volume, and is obviously doing some clickbait per @R3qn55 above.
This is just me trying to summarize a bunch of online opinions though. I feel it is useful but not necessarily conclusory
Thanks for pitching in. A part of me is hoping she's just following a strategy geared towards growing the channel to start with, and then moves away from the clickbait once she has enough attention. Yes, I'm a naïve person who sometimes gets disappointed, but not always!
Honestly, I would just read Euronews then!
Watched two House of El videos and I suspect she picks a mainstream topic, Googles for a few related articles, then has AI write a script. It's nonsense that she keeps citing so many different articles from tier 2/3 publications for her ASML video when she could just cite one. Her hard-hitting analysis is that EUV machines are hard to make and it's only ASML who makes them; duh?
This video implies that Europe is a bigger choke point via ASML than TSMC/Intel are and I'd disagree given that someone has to actually make the chips and the EUV machines have already been sold. It's not like TSMC would stop selling chips to the US. Europe can't force TSMC to not sell to the US nor can Europe meaningfully restrict access to the US because ASML builds their machines based on technology licensed to them via the US. Yes, the US developed the core technology and gave it to the Dutch. In exchange, the US secured their own rights. This hard-hitting analysis fails to incorporate the origins of EUV.
El serves more as a surface-level news aggregator than an analyst from the little I've seen. She's not saying anything obviously wrong, but she's not adding any unique insight. At the end of the day, it's listening to an AI podcast with a real human voice.
ProPublica. To give you an idea, as of this writing the top five stories are about:
They’re investigative journalism and they tend to do an excellent job bringing receipts.
These guys are already in my RSS feed, thanks.
Try News Minimalist. They have a free version and a subscription version.
Their very interesting ranking process specifically seeks out stories of high general importance and I am regularly blown away by news items that are reported there but overlooked by most news services I access.
May I suggest 2-3 monthly or preferably quarterly magazines instead?
The format forces a kind of slowness and for me it's been a nice way to forget to pick up my phone a little by having small piles in the bathroom and in other suitable spots.
If you're so inclined you might even go straight to scientific journals in a subject that interests you.
Since everyone on the internet is an American FBI agent (or however the saying goes) and I assume you are too I won't recommend any from my part of the world and my interest's but I'm sure there must be magazines around to subscribe to.
One general comment and two suggestions for you -
My comment is to get past the first page on most news sites - that's trying to bring in the clicks so it tends to be very headliney. If you go down into the deeper sections or go to the print views (FT, WSJ, and Economist all have one) that you can see what their printed page looks like so you get less of the disaster of the day.
One - I really like the Economist for a more global viewpoint of what's going on in the world and more of an analysis focus. When I used to get the print edition, if I couldn't read it cover to cover, I would read the leaders and then pick a geography each week to read. I read the digital edition now and try to read the print version and do something similar. The Economist does have a classical liberal viewpoint which can sometimes be a bit limiting, but at least they're honest and clear on their viewpoint.
I also enjoy Bellingcat's discord as you can get a lot of open source intelligence and world perspective that traditional media lacks. Many of their threads are organized by topic and long running over a period of time. They're generally well moderated to keep it focused on the intelligence and not have constant political bickering. It's a good alternative, ground up take. Some topics tend to have the bias - ie Israel/Palestine, US politics, etc - or shortsightedness - business topics - of their participants.
You may like Rest of World.