What are some news sites, blogs, or web magazines that are the best for learning about significant events that occur in the world? Are there any specific journalists or writers out there that I should keep a particular eye on?
I have lived my life thus far without caring much about the news--with my parents and, sadly, FaceBook being my weak and biased (quite liberal) news sources. I would more so enjoy news of all parts of the spectrum. I have heard that various sites such as NPR, CNN, or even The New Yorker and print sources like TIME are popular sources for better news.
Would those be the best sources for the best coverage on significant news? And articles that are well written? I do not have enough experience with news to determine what is significant, but at this point, I can give examples of what I feel does not fall in the category like news about celebrities, fashion, and (sorry, I'm a fan too) sports. I guess news on business, education, politics, etc. is what I am looking for.
I also don't have much time every day to peruse the news for golden nuggets, so any advice, tips, recommendations, and sharing of experience and habits would be great!
Also, what are some similar sites that are based in Asia?
The Guardian, BBC and NPR are the only good answers here. Al Jazeera is "good for an international perspective" -- but it's also probably the most biased major source of journalism in the world. My advice is to avoid as much as possible "learning about the world" from day to day news and articles. Get your facts and news alerts from the BBC etc if you must, but for becoming knowledgeable and informed, stick to longform journalism and books. Read Pando, Vox, Foreign Affairs or anything else which provides perspective and collates events over time. I say this because it's really not helpful to start from scratch simply by going to CNN World and clicking on something about the Islamic State. First of all you'll need to pull up maps of Syria, Turkey and Iraq to visualize what you're reading. Then you'll probably need to reference a half dozen Wikipedia pages before you get two inches into the story. And so on. It's not as simple as reading the paper every day. Pando, for example, gives you this context internally. Honestly, a good first step is to follow rrrrr, b_b, kleinbl00, myself and a handful of others (or various news-related tags) and to read the hubski comments -- we have a lot of foreign policy/news/world wonks here.
I agree with this. I was recently reading an essay by Huxley in which he discussed the overwhelming amount of journalistic information that he read every single day. He argued that it was detrimental because all the reports segued into the next without giving time for a particularly distinct picture. This is part of why books are so important. Firstly you'll get an abridged and generally accurate overview of events and secondly you'll get some historiographical interpretation. "He who is closest to the event is the best witness but the worst judge." I read The Guardian but can't recommend it alongside the BBC as others have done. At times, its left bias verges on the ridiculous.My advice is to avoid as much as possible "learning about the world" from day to day news and articles.
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT I am unconvinced that any source is worth paying attention to full-time. I live in an age of aggregation; my experiences with Reddit demonstrated pretty succinctly that most major news sources are simply aggregating and curating what they're picking up on social media. The good ones will roll a truck and provide some actual investigative journalism, but generally not before a few days have passed. At that point they aren't aggregating, they're curating, and some curation is better than others. Everyone has a bias, everyone has strengths, everyone has weaknesses. There is so little primary reporting any more that contextualization becomes the role of any journalism bureau. I have also surmised that journalism is in a dark period at the moment where everyone is struggling for survival. That struggle does not benefit reportage. As such, any single point suffers the slings and arrows of collapsing budgets, employee layoffs, bureau dissolution and the need to pay the bills through listicles and "featured content." Things may get better but they won't get better soon. Long story short: I subscribe to The Week and I check The Daily Beast Cheat Sheet every morning. If I want to know more, I dig deeper. If DBCS has nothing, I know it's a slow day.
Give me a second, I've got a list here somewhere... Ah, here it is. News: Al-Jazeera America BBC (specifically BBC World) NPR News ProPublica is great for investigative journalism The Guardian The Intercept is awesome for security/privacy stuff, mostly VICE News is fantastic on-the-ground coverage, just be warned it can get pretty gruesome. I had to cut myself off from their YT channel because it was making me paranoid and stressed. Washington Post OPINION (N.B. This list is heavily on the liberal bias): Mother Jones The New Republic Salon Slate The Daily Beast
The main thing to remember when choosing 'the best sources for the best coverage on significant news' is the 's' in 'sources'. In order to maintain good coverage of worldly events it is important to get your information from multiple perspectives to build your own holistic view. On that note, perhaps begin with three different sources. These are my recommendations: Al-Jazeera (based in Qatar, good for an international perspective) TIME (which is also online, but I love holding a newsmagazine, and based in NYC) and The Guardian or the BBC, both based in the UK.
The Guardian is a good newspaper from the UK and one of the few quality papers that's not behind a paywall these days. (Hence my frequent posting of Guardian articles up here.) Their homepage format is confusing but if you click the news section links at the top (UK, World, etc.) you get through to more real news content.
Okay thanks for the advice guys, I will begin with BBC, NPR, and Al Jazeera for now since they've been the most recommended. Once school starts for me, I'll start digging into journals and books in the libraries for more news. Once I familiarize myself with reading news, I'll probably start tackling on Asian news written in Chinese.
Besides Hubski ;) I suggest a journal like the Economist, ideally. >For a quicker and more digestible medium, if you have an iPhone you can download the NYT app and get alerts whenever something "big" happens, or browse the daily paper from your Newsstand app. The Wall Street Journal is also a popular news source in the U.S. but just as potentially sensationalist. >Al-Jazeera is a great website for international news, and I like TIME magazine (also smartphone-able) for senseless entertainment of various stupidity and great potential intrigue. Don't watch cable news. >The Colbert Report. Just kidding. But seriously.