I'm not sure which ones you may have already eliminated as unreliable, other than Fox -- and not sure if you're eliminating them because of inaccuracies in reporting or for editorial slant/bias, because if the latter, I think I've heard either one side or another complain about editorial slant with just nearly every news outlet there is, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, et al.

I keep my eye on several different sources -- mostly a headline skimmer, me, unless something in particular has my interest for awhile. I'm pretty mainstream, too, I guess -- I just don't have a lot of time to spend digging in a more proactive way so tend to get my news a bit more passively -- it helps if it comes to me via radio or tv that happens to be on, or by Feeds on the net.

Reuters a UK source for world news; well respected rep; I've not heard anything negative about them

In the US, NPR (National Public Radio) which I like very much, but they do tend to a more liberal slant; I've heard compaints that they're too 'brainy' and 'elitist' but that's mostly coming from folks who want just the "if it bleeds it leads", weather, and sports

The big papers, New York Times and L.A. Times, and my local Dallas Morning News -- and then there's the 'upstart' USA Today that used to take some heat for being the news equivalent of fast food (not sure if its rep has changed over the yrs)

And I do pay some attention to the big networks' news (ABC news, CBS news, and NBC -- but mostly via TV, not so much on the web. (Their sites are increasingly autoplay videos that annoy me -- esp. NBC's.) Of course there are the concerns about corporate ownership and influence, too, but I think they still do a fair job.

I don't often check CNN these days -- used to, when they were really the pioneers of 24/7 stuff; the first Gulf War made them, really. But still I see their headlines on my news page.

If you're looking for just one source for US, though, I have no idea which to suggest. I find my system of sampling many pretty well balances out the bias.

My family (mostly very conservative conservatives) are partial to our 'home town' paper The Oklahoman (Oklahoma City). But even it has become more 'citified' and 'not as good as it used to be years ago' (heh). Has lost a bit of its quaint charm, I guess ;)

Fairly often these days, I find myself splitting my time between the middle of the day Conservative shows (i.e. Rush Limbaugh, Shawn Hannity) and the evening shows on NPR, all of which are, as SS pointed out, Liberal in their slant, but between them I get a fairly accurate picture of the things I need to know about.  NBC and Fox are my TV news channels (With C-Span as a good, where things stand immediately check, but don't listen to them after the fact, and the BBC when I can get it), and for the paper I split my time between the Detroit News/Freepress (Fairly unbiased, comparatively, with the funniest sports columnist I've ever read), USA Today (Liberal) and the Wall Street Journal (Conservative), occasionally throwing Reuters in for an external source of info.  To keep up with all of the sources I have to go to, I often find myself skimming more than reading, but I get enough information to make up my mind about issues for the most part, and any questions I have I start digging through other sources.

I have found, in general, that the most unreliable sources (i.e. biased to the point of ridiculousness) are CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC, PBS (they've got some neat shows, but most of the time they just irritate me).  That's pretty much it.  If you're looking for an unbiased news source, Jen, I'm afraid that you're S.O.L. on that one.  "Just the facts" is not a good way to "sell" the newspaper.  It'd be nice, but I think it's a pipe dream *grins*.

Wolfshade wrote:

I think The Daily Show is one of the most objective "news" sources out there now, lol.

*L* I was going to say The Daily Show, too. There have been many weeks where that was pretty much the only thing I actually paid attention to news-wise.

Lately we've been watching CBS News Sunday Morning. It has a nice, laid-back pacing, they spend time going into more depth on stories that cover a pretty good range of topics -- so not a serious news broadcast, but quite interesting stuff often.

For NZ news www.stuff.co.nz is the big news site, but it's pretty heavily biased towards old fashioned, "ZOMGgetoffmylawnyoukids!" type reporting.

For general information I've heard The Economist is the thing to read. I like reading The Washington Post because I find the quality of writing there to be a bit higher than average. When I was back at home in the states I used to read the San Francisco Chronicle fairly regularly, but they're mostly good for bay area stuff.

I wouldn't bother with Fox like you pointed out, they're, to paraphrase my dad, so full of sh*t they squeak going into a turn.

Al Jazeera is a good source not only for Middle Eastern news but for news in general.

For a more hard leftist point of view there's always The Nation and Mother Jones.

Bah. I'm paranoid. Ignore me. :P

OMG! Fox news gave me a popup! How rude!

Tangentially, the Washington Post won 6 pulitzer prizes this year:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … id=artslot

The Indian Newspaper The Hindu has an online edition here: http://www.hinduonnet.com/

It gives you Indian and international news from an Indian perspective. It's definitely biased in one way or the other - but how can you avoid that?

They also link to the magazine Frontline, which is published by the same publishing house and also available online. It's a weekly magazine that contains commentaries on political, social and ecological topics in India and the world.


Oh yeah, and for Yemen I know the Yemen Observer. The have an online edition here: http://www.yobserver.com/
The funny thing: I know the chief editor personally. They work hard to be an independent newspaper, which is not so easy in Yemen. So it might be interesting.


I'm going to leave it to someone more educated than myself to suggest a newspaper about Germany. The only ones I know are published in German...

Jendaiya: We'd end up having to call it: "Mal and Jen Fight to the Death over the Issues."

*laughs*  I maintain, the joke is that I'm a moderate, not a right winger... I just play one on TV, yeah, that's it *grins* (which is somewhat true, a number of the things we've talked about in the Halls have been items that I'm closer to "right" than "left" on).  You realize, though, that I'm only half joking, we would need a seriously right wing person for some of this.  I'm good at the debate, and I'm pretty sure I could be fairly convincing, but the thing is that I just don't buy some of their crap, and I know it would show through.

I think we should give it a shot, though.  Who's game?? (*he says this while grinning and looking at the manuscripts, comic scripts, and rapidly expanding "gotta do this" notebook*...  By the by, I'm working on plotting and scripting out a web-comic.  I just gotta find a good, solid, dependable artist... I'll let you guys know what I find)

Last edited by Malachy_Sunblade (2008-04-11 19:54:31)

The 1800 miles distance between us helps on the "not killing each other" thing, Jen. *grins*

Did I say that it would stop you?  No, I merely said that the distance would help *grins*.  Give you plenty of time to think over what a silly idea it is to cross Canada just to get li'l ol' me.  Even by air travel it's a good six hours... plus customs, plus various other things that consume time...  Plenty of time for me to escape and thwart your E-VILE plans.