I recently started jumping around various browsers and machines. I sometimes keep instinctually going to Google News in all of these environments. I am often signed-out in these other browsers. This has been an eye-opening experience for me.

Many years ago I had blocked Fox, RT, and other crap out of my GNews feed. I was living in a bubble of my own making. I actually prefer that bubble, as there is more factual information in it, but it comes at a cost. I had lost a lot of my situational awareness of the political and media climate.

I am not trying to be centrist here, I just think that one should know the entire battlefield, not just the news given from their comfortable sources. For one thing, I had no idea of the dominance which Fox News had in Google News, also that RT was so prevalent, also that there was so many other sources of utter right-wing propaganda that had been normalized. How can I fight disinformation if I am unaware of its origins?

What do you think about this? Would you take me up on my challenge of reading the uncustomised news? Do you ever try to get out of your comfort zone in the news? Does it help inform you?

_{edit: Just FYI, to easily use Google News, or any other news site signed-out, first open a "private window" in your browser.}

I just watched an interesting This Week in Startups interview with the CEO of a nascent but successful new "news" organization from the Netherlands called De Correspondent. They are launching a new US-based company called The Correspondent, which has some high profile supporters. This list includes Nate Silver, William Julius Wilson, Rosanne Cash, and some others.

Their business model allows them to attract high-quality journalists by optimizing for journalistic integrity and independence. They have around 60,000 members paying around $70 per year in the Netherlands. They do no advertising business and are a for-profit corp with a dividend cap of 5% to make themselves unattractive to VC-type investors. The CEO claims they "ignore the news," meaning that they try to avoid the sound-bite quips that can be very distracting. They do not report on individual's scandals, instead focusing on systemic issues.

Journalists are required to share their stories with the members as they are developing. Stories are not guarded secrets while in development unlike traditional news organizations. This allows members to contribute to the stories via a form of curated crowdsourcing. For example, they reached out to members when doing a story on Shell, and found a few members who had access to the company which led to discovery of Shell's own internal Inconvenient Truth type video which was made in 1991.

The CEO also mentioned that he always includes a developer or designer in story discussions so that the latest investigation and presentation tools can be used on a story from day one.

Please take a look at the links and let me know what you think of this model, and its chances in the US market. I am pretty excited for anyone trying anything new in this space. What do you think? Would you pay for something like this?

^{Edit: I'm not sure if there is a better ~group for this topic, please move it if there is. Also, formatting, phrasing, and clarity.}

Here is a direct link to the CEO's Medium account with more information.