Shrinking number of free news outlets
We've had discussions around here before about where we get our news, and one of mine has been The BBC. I've used them as an occasional source for several years now. It seems that today (Nov 15th) marks a shift in their policy regarding access to their online site. BBC.com is no longer readable for free. I can look at their headlines, but as soon as I try to read an article, a subscribe pop-up appears, and there is no way around it. Archive sites will still have the articles, yes, but that is a different subject entirely.
As far as I'm concerned, that drops them from my list of news sources. I have tentatively replaced them with Reuters, which is visually clunky, but still free. The AP site, PBS and National Public Radio are other sites I frequent. For a British viewpoint, I'm also trying out The Guardian, which bombards me with SUBSCRIBE notices, but those can still be zapped out of sight.
Are there any other obvious sites I haven't mentioned? Not interested in right-wing propaganda by the way and I find most of the major American networks intolerable.
I feel that at some point it becomes worth it to simply pay for news if you care about getting high quality, unbiased reporting. Journalism is a relatively new profession all things considered, and free journalism is an incredibly new thing, and I don't think it's sustainable unfortunately, though I wish it were the case. High quality reporting is a costly thing, and when the product is being given out for free then one has to question where the money is coming from, because if it's not coming from the readers then it's likely coming at least in part from sources that have a vested interest in what the news reports. I'm all for frugality, especially in the world we live in today, but a subscription to a decent news site just isn't that expensive for most westerners.
That being said, I would say that paying for news is worth it, but it just seems that anything behind a paywall is just as biased as anything else. Ping it on the adftonesmedia.com site, but... there is no unbiased anything these days.
All news is biased news, of course, but in today's media landscape it's more often than not a tossup between "reports the news" and "spouts propaganda on behalf of their benefactors" with an unfortunately small amount of grey area in between. And if you want your propaganda to reach as wide an audience as possible, of course you'll publish it for free. That doesn't mean that all free news sources are untrustworthy, or that all paid sources are trustworthy, but it's a factor to consider, I think. There's no such thing as a free lunch. I don't consume the news too much these days on account of the enormous mental strain I experience from being constantly reminded of how I'm living through the collapse of civilisation and the climate apocalypse, but I've found that, if nothing else, paid, reputable sources at least try harder to report "proper" news. But of course it's best to get news from multiple sources to account for inevitable biases in all of them.
Additionally, I generally like giving my dollar to things I support on principle, when I can afford it at least. I use Wikipedia a ton and support its mission, so when I can I'll buy them a cup of coffee or two. I try to buy at local businesses as much as I can, I don't buy from Amazon, I pay for Google product alternatives, stuff like that. I extend that same thinking to paying for news; if it's something I utilise regularly, then I think there's no reason why I couldn't throw $2-3 their way every month if I can. I'm not well-off by any means, but by the privilege of living in a rich Western country, I am fortunate enough to be able to align my spending with my principles somewhat.
I try to donate towards things I feel are globally worth it: most goes to local food banks that I've researched, and I also put what I would like to think is a decent amount towards various other online options (the Wiki, Mozilla, and DDG are some). I am super happy I went back and got my degree (though omfg I wish I could have had trade school opportunities in my youth, but being female kinda messed with a lot of that) and now make a comfortable amount that I can give.
I have thrown more than a few donations towards NPR, as I do appreciate their reporting, but as you stated, everything is biased. And NPR at least doesn't do the paywall thing, so I'm not sure if that falls under your "if you want your propaganda to reach as wide an audience as possible, of course you'll publish it for free" statement (I doubt as much, but the shoe does fit here heh).
Honestly, I would like to hear facts, not news. Very rarely does any "news" source actually publish anything new: we've already heard somehow, and it's always spun as you already know.
I did have to chuckle though, your statement "I don't consume the news too much these days on account of the enormous mental strain I experience from being constantly reminded of how I'm living through the collapse of civilisation and the climate apocalypse" reminds me of growing up in the 80s... my mother had me believing the USSR was about to nuke us, and Regan was going to save us all! And honestly, looking at today's situation, I feel that it's not much different. I'm likely on the complete opposite viewpoint now, but who knows...
Ultimately, I want facts. "Israel has prevented journalist from entering the West Bank" or "SCOTUS has declined to revisit gay marriage" are both things I want to know about. Tell me things like this, and I'm all yours!
I guess, but the cost of a newspaper was more about covering the physical printing costs. They still sold tons of ads and it has really been an ads business since the start. Not to mention "free" news in the modern way we think of it dates back to radio, which was absolutely free in the same way using a phone or computer to find news is free.
The core issue is that good journalism is harder to access than it ever way due to the decline in monoculture while the access to terrible journalism is as easy and free as ever.
What I want and my own ethics aside, there is a fundamental imbalance in "good" versus "bad' news and while the premium may be worth it to avoid all the slop, all it's actually doing is bifurcating those who stay informed and those who get misinformed.
Hmm, I had no idea BBC had added a paywall, but apparently they only implemented it for US viewers in June. It doesn't sound like there are plans to roll it out anywhere else though, thankfully.
Uhm, what? Unless something recently changed, Reuters has had a worldwide metered paywall since Oct of last year. Are you sure you just haven't hit your free article viewing limit for the month yet?
BTW, might I also suggest the CBC.ca as an alternative to the BBC. Much like the BBC is for the UK, CBC is our government funded public-service broadcaster up here in Canada, but it's still entirely paywall free AFAIK. And similarly, there is also ABC.net.au (Australian Broadcast Corporation, not the .com US network) as well.
CBC also has a stripped down minimalist version, CBC Lite, for those with low bandwidth or who prefer text based, newspaper feel. The pictures / media don't even display unless you click on them. It's especially great in dark mode.
If you like the Guardian you may like The Independent . Similar feel.
If you like the BBC give Al Jazeera a go. Originally founded by the Emir of Qatar with many former BBC staffers.
Huh, all these years as a Canadian and I never knew about CBC Lite. Thanks for sharing that!
It is entirely possible that I could hit a limit on articles at Reuters, since I've just started with them today. There is no indication that there is any limit for me at this point. Two buttons at the top right of the site, for Signing in and Registering, support your statement however, and I'll soon know if they put a limit on my access. If so, I'll drop them like a hot rock too.
I'll take a look at CBC.ca and ABC.net.au. Thanks for those suggestions.
Reuters costs like a dollar I think per month in Canada, but is free in the US.
Ah, I didn't realize Reuters was still free in the US. Thanks, I was kinda confused about that. Trying to keep track of all these paywalls types, and which countries they're being applied to is super annoying. :/
Pro Publica is very good, and they only report on their own journalism. You will not find them reposting news wire stories.
Even though they are free, I think it's worth funding high-quality journalism like theirs.
Thanks for mentioning them. I'll take a look.
It’s not a perfect solution but if you’re comfortable with circumvention technologies I recommend Bypass Paywalls Clean. It’s frequently updated and uses a variety of techniques to get around soft paywalls on a ton of sites. Unfortunately it was chased from GitLab and GitHub by DMCA takedowns, and now resides at this Russian site which is out of reach of American law but also gives it the appearance of being rather sketchy. Also there are now a couple hoops to jump through to install it, since the browser extension stores refuse to distribute it.
I’ve been using it for years and I trust magnolia1234 who has been tirelessly maintaining it through all the ups and downs. It works quite well. Obviously use your own discretion and do the necessary due diligence before installing it for yourself.
not that its worth anything, but I've been using the one from that repo for a time and its been great... well, the same as before.
thanks for sharing it! I came here to do the same. magnola1234 is a saint.
Fwiw, it only requests permissions to access specific sites, so unless you have some sensitive information in your account on some news website, it couldn't hack you even if it wanted to. It's also nice to see how often new sites are added - once in a while it will pop up requesting access permissions for like 10 new websites.
I've been happy paying for Le Monde, The Guardian (pay what you want, free access), and Reuters.
Just offering another avenue for accessing news, but depending on your municipality's size (and library funding), your public library system may offer some free access to news websites. Sometimes through news readers, sometimes direct subscriptions.
https://www.readtangle.com/
"Political news is broken. We’re fixing it. We're a non-partisan politics newsletter that gives you a 360-degree view on the news. No spin. No clickbait. Opinions from the left, right, and center so you can decide."
There is a free version and a subscription version.
I tend to only visit local news sites regularly however I have frequently noticed higher quality articles from Arstechnica. While it's generally just tech focused it's one of the few sites I might consider subscribing to if I had the budget for it.
I was a member at Ars for over twenty years. Their reporting has gone downhill ever since they were bought out. I find two of their regular writers to be complete pricks, and had a public spat with one of them. He is arrogant and quite abusive in his replies, and the editorial staff does nothing about this. I had enough and left. I won't go back and every time a story from Ars comes up on Tildes, I block it. So, not for me.
Wow, that's disheartening. I guess I hadn't frequented the site enough to notice the recent decline, I think my general opinion of it was mostly from earlier stuff over the years.
are the links via RSS any better since there should be a form of referral? https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml
these feeds might also be worth trying out. For the Guardian, might be fun to use https://guardian.gyford.com/
I find what with virtually any individual source, including three of the four you listed—I don't use the fourth one—the quality articles and those that are worth the time to read are scattered between opinion pieces and recycled filler. To me, this is the real difficulty: getting to what matters.
In an attempt to solve this, I've been trying out Ground News and Perplexity's Discover feed. They are both aggregates that try to group articles from different sources reporting on the same events. (They also do LLM-generated summaries, which I often find less sensarionalist than most of the cited sources, but these can be ignored entirely.) Between the cited sources, I usually find a few paywall-free options that cover the matter adequately for my needs.