What news sources are still good? BBC just went to pot..

Used to like the Irish papers but they're too localized. Then I was on the guardian for a few years but lost interest in it by now as well. Not big on news anymore but BBC fit the bill for the last few months till tonight.

Taliban leader died two years ago, here's a photo of the new leader for about five seconds. Now let's tell the story with an entire backdrop of normal Muslims in a mosque.

Maybe I missed something but it was a bit mad to just show a genreric mosque as the background for a "western threat". I tried to listen but couldn't find the reason for it.

GLaDOS

I hear The Journal offer insightful articles, balanced user comments and impeccable spelling.

Jinonatron

Russia today is a good comedy sketch.

Boring username

A handy tip I learned from a journalist is just to read the first paragraph of any news story. Pretty much everything you need to know is there, everything else is filler and the mandatory sound-byte from a slack jawed witness.

To answer your question, keep a broad range of sites in mind and just flick through them for coverage. Don't bother with in depth analysis or clickbait, since that's what they are all leaning towards these days.

pickarooney

Boring username wrote: »

A handy tip I learned from a journalist is just to read the first paragraph of any news story.

Because you can't copy and paste more than that to twitter anyway.

Bloomberg is good but they've just updated their app to a crap version.

Fukuyama

Forget 24/7 News or sites like The Journal. All SHOCK HORROR clickbait designed to either appeal to the masses or upset them. Either way it generates more shares on social media.

I keep an eye on major events. Al Jazeera English and BBC World are two good sites. RTE for National affairs. All three need to be viewed with their paymasters in mind of course.

For in-depth analysis, I have a weekly subscription to TIME magazine. Decent feature pieces even if some articles can be a little too liberal for me (they tend to bend the knee to PC trends a little too often for me).

Financial Times for sound advise as to why the world is going to **** and how we should save it by investing in helium.

Streetwalker

RT is decent at balancing out the spin sky/fox/RTE etc...put out there. For instance their coverage of the UK houses of parliament pedophile ring whilst UK media turns the other way is important.

KomradeBishop

What kind of news are you looking for? If you're focusing on a particular general outlet, a whole newspaper, a whole news network etc., then you're just mixing the good with the bad, instead of finding the authors that are actually worth reading.

The_Valeyard

Streetwalker wrote: »

RT is decent at balancing out the spin sky/fox/RTE etc...put out there. For instance their coverage of the UK houses of parliament pedophile ring whilst UK media turns the other way is important.

Yes, they take out the sky / Fox spin and add in Putin's spin.

James Bond Junior

My dad is a news junkie and holds Al Jazeera in high esteem. Reckons they are actually quite impartial.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Helps to watcg a range of outlets. Guardian and RT are the ones I find to be the most interesting.

BBC went to pot ages ago. Conservstive mouthpiece now - can't remember the last time I went to their website and it wasn't telling me how whatever war rhe Brits were involved in was going or wahetver ISIS was doing now.

Fox_In_Socks

After Hours on this little set up called boards.ie is quite good. It features a multitude of investigators, commentators and purveyors of the latest news information, presented in an unbiased fashion.

Billy86

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Yes, they take out the sky / Fox spin and add in Putin's spin.

You mean like, almost as if they were balancing it out?

You don't even need news sites. Primary information is where it's at. Read press releases from the likes of the European Commission/ Council, the IMF, the Bank of England, the Irish Finance Ministry, the ESRI...

You'll be just as well informed as the journalists who write on these topics, if not better informed. And you won't have to rely on their opinion or bias.

Cut out the middleman altogether.

I read national newspapers for actual news (road deaths, murder trials, election results), but anything contentious, you're better off going to the source. The very idea of needing to read op-eds is mildly insulting.

NachoBusiness

The Daily Mail is an exceptional news source.. oh yeah, I said it.

99% of the time they will have a news story up online long before anyone else. Their website is easy to use and more importantly, free. Obviously the DM has it's detractors (just a few) but it the main, these people tend to be sheep and just regurgitating opinion regarding it. They hate women! Nope, the DM pretty much hate everyone. Seem obsessed wit Leo DeCaprio's weight at the minute indeed. They are right wing and hate foreigners! Nope, they just have the balls to report things the way they are and even if they did, I can always disagree and move to the next article.

Well over 90% of the articles on DM site will not have been reported with an agenda in in mind and the ones that have, well, I am an adult capable of making my own mind up and so I do just that. Contrast that with the likes of the Guardian and almost all of their news are whitewashed and bent to suit their leftist agenda. That's if they bother to report certain aspects of the news at all, and quite often they won't, they will just ignore certain stories which they feel don't suit their nauseating narrative.

Cracking website. Wall of shame notwithstanding.

Long reign the Daily Mail I say.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

NachoBusiness wrote: »

The Daily Mail is an exceptional news source.. oh yeah, I said it.

99% of the time they will have a news story up online long before anyone else. Their website is easy to use and more importantly, free. Obviously the DM has it's detractors (just a few) but it the main, these people tend to be sheep and just regurgitating opinion regarding it. They hate women! Nope, the DM pretty much hate everyone. Seem obsessed wit Leo DeCaprio's weight at the minute indeed. They are right wing and hate foreigners! Nope, they just have the balls to report things the way they are and even if they did, I can always disagree and move to the next article.

Well over 90% of the articles on DM site will not have been reported with an agenda in in mind and the ones that have, well, I am an adult capable of making my own mind up and so I do just that. Contrast that with the likes of the Guardian and almost all of their news are whitewashed and bent to suit their leftist agenda. That's if they bother to report certain aspects of the news at all, and quite often they won't, they will just ignore certain stories which they feel don't suit their nauseating narrative.

Cracking website. Wall of shame notwithstanding.

Long reign the Daily Mail I say.

I may be wrong, but I think he meant honest.

Smiles35

Telegraph seems ok imo.

Berserker

NachoBusiness wrote: »

The Daily Mail is an exceptional news source.. oh yeah, I said it.

Just beat me to it and I second your recommendation.

Junkyard Tom

Business news can be surprisingly honest about world affairs and if you read between the lines you can see why certain things happen.

KomradeBishop

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

You don't even need news sites. Primary information is where it's at. Read press releases from the likes of the European Commission/ Council, the IMF, the Bank of England, the Irish Finance Ministry, the ESRI...

You'll be just as well informed as the journalists who write on these topics, if not better informed. And you won't have to rely on their opinion or bias.

Cut out the middleman altogether.

I read national newspapers for actual news (road deaths, murder trials, election results), but anything contentious, you're better off going to the source. The very idea of needing to read op-eds is mildly insulting.

The problem with that is, you risk digesting press reports uncritically - I would consider press reports from every one of those organizations to be inherently biased.

So, you'd want to have some good sources/writers, who do critical analysis of those source and their reports - someone picking apart the press releases for you, to highlight what is objectionable (and you decide which criticisms are/aren't valid).

P1nkSheep

James Bond Junior wrote: »

My dad is a news junkie and holds Al Jazeera in high esteem. Reckons they are actually quite impartial.

I agree with your dad, definitely give a more balanced view on things than many other broadcasters

Mechanical Clocktail

The guardian is a parody of itself for the last couple of years.

cml387

I happen to be reading a book called "Flat Earth News" at the moment,written by Nick Davies (sometime Guardian journalist, but don't let that put you off).

His point is that ALL media outlets, and he includes The Guardian, are mainly regurgitating nonsense from PR sources, official government sources and advertisers.

This is done not because of any huge conspiracy but because the media is not driven by a thirst for news but a thirst for making money.

So therefore, they will only report news that fits the reader profile and panders to whats popular.

So we have celeb news, bandwagon journalism and for gods sake don't bore anyone with facts.

Mechanical Clocktail

cml387 wrote: »

I happen to be reading a book called "Flat Earth News" at the moment,written by Nick Davies (sometime Guardian journalist, but don't let that put you off).

His point is that ALL media outlets, and he includes The Guardian, are mainly regurgitating nonsense from PR sources, official government sources and advertisers.

This is done not because of any huge conspiracy but because the media is not driven by a thirst for news but a thirst for making money.

So therefore, they will only report news that fits the reader profile and panders to whats popular.

So we have celeb news, bandwagon journalism and for gods sake don't bore anyone with facts.

A more researched and engaging book would be manufacturing consent.

Son Of A Vidic

Jinonatron wrote: »

Russia today is a good comedy sketch.

Sky News or Fox beats it hands down.

KomradeBishop

KomradeBishop wrote: »

I would consider press reports from every one of those organizations to be inherently biased.

Excellent observation, completely correct.

KomradeBishop wrote: »

you'd want to have some good sources/writers, who do critical analysis of those source and their reports - someone picking apart the press releases for you, to highlight what is objectionable (and you decide which criticisms are/aren't valid).

Ideally, yes.

My chosen type of news information is certainly an imperfect choice, because of the inherent political bias of the IMF, the Commission, the BoE, and so on.

However, although I cannot eliminate first-hand political bias, I can at least eliminate second-hand bias: the publications and statistics that The Times (of London/ Financial/ Irish), or the Guardian (Nenagh/ UK) choose to ignore.

It's more of a risk limitation exercise than risk eradication.

Google news is pretty good.

NachoBusiness

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

I may be wrong, but I think he meant honest.

Around 150 articles on their homepage right now. Find me just a dozen of them which are factually incorrect. Not annoying articles now (such as: 'Look, a Kardashian goes for a walk') or articles where you just don't like an opinion that one of their hacks has expressed (such as: 'the French are to blame for the chaos in Calais')...but genuine examples of them deliberately being "dishonest".

Wacker The Attacker

The financial times.


My golden rule is that if you want to know whats really going on in the world, read the business pages.

Wacker The Attacker

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Business news can be surprisingly honest about world affairs and if you read between the lines you can see why certain things happen.

True for you.


The rest is horseplop

KomradeBishop

Naked Capitalism provides the best critical analysis of major economic issues and related political issues, that I know of - very educational, and has a good focus on trying to foster critical thinking among readers, rather than just regurgitating current events to its readers.

conorh91

NachoBusiness wrote: »

Around 150 articles on their homepage right now. Find me just a dozen of them which are factually incorrect. Not annoying articles now (such as: 'Look, a Kardashian goes for a walk') or articles where you just don't like an opinion that one of their hacks has expressed (such as: 'the French are to blame for the chaos in Calais')...but genuine examples of them deliberately being "dishonest".

you won't find even a dozen fake articles on any newspaper homepage

Even if such headlines were true, all oir main papers know better than to publish obviously false headlines.

TomBtheGoat

cml387 wrote: »

I happen to be reading a book called "Flat Earth News" at the moment,written by Nick Davies (sometime Guardian journalist, but don't let that put you off).

His point is that ALL media outlets, and he includes The Guardian, are mainly regurgitating nonsense from PR sources, official government sources and advertisers.

This is done not because of any huge conspiracy but because the media is not driven by a thirst for news but a thirst for making money.

So therefore, they will only report news that fits the reader profile and panders to whats popular.

So we have celeb news, bandwagon journalism and for gods sake don't bore anyone with facts.

Not over looking the fact, that a half dozen billionaires control the vast majority of the world's media. So fact's and real news reporting only tends to occur when it suits their interests.

speedboatchase

James Bond Junior wrote: »

My dad is a news junkie and holds Al Jazeera in high esteem. Reckons they are actually quite impartial.

Al Jazeera is ridiculously biased, on a sliding scale from Al Jazeera America, Al Jazeera English and then Al Jazeera Arabic. Every Palestinian killed by Israel - including Hamas fighters - are referred to as "martyrs". That's not impartial. I live in Qatar and have heard some horror stories from people who have worked in the newsroom - both in terms of anti-Western spinning of stories being met by mutual agreement in the Doha office (you can find an example if you Google the emails between AJ English and its Western correspondents following Charlie Hebdo) and the positive discrimination hiring of local graduates to senior positions with zero experience. It is similar to Russia Today in that you're getting the worldview of a specific country, one which frames things in a way that lauds the Muslim Brotherhood, infantalises Palestinians, and ignores what's going on in Qatar and its Gulf allies.

Fratton Fred

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Helps to watcg a range of outlets. Guardian and RT are the ones I find to be the most interesting.

BBC went to pot ages ago. Conservstive mouthpiece now - can't remember the last time I went to their website and it wasn't telling me how whatever war rhe Brits were involved in was going or wahetver ISIS was doing now.

The British Broadcasting Corporation reporting British news? The shame.

One of the reasons the conservative party love attacking the BBC is that they see it as being very left wing and anti conservative. Labour see it as being a right wing Tory instrument.

That probably means it is doing its job.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

NachoBusiness wrote: »

Around 150 articles on their homepage right now. Find me just a dozen of them which are factually incorrect. Not annoying articles now (such as: 'Look, a Kardashian goes for a walk') or articles where you just don't like an opinion that one of their hacks has expressed (such as: 'the French are to blame for the chaos in Calais')...but genuine examples of them deliberately being "dishonest".

Dishinest is not necessarily the same as lying.

First two stories I read: illegal immigrants who are successful are being put up in hotels and being fed three meals a day and pocket money (was this verified? Did they present a counter argument? Bit dishonest to not enable a reader to check the sources or present the other side of the story)

Rolf Harris. This one just doesn't sound true. Why did Brosnsn not voice his suspicions earlier? Its also interesting the way these stories only ever appear when the person in question is either dead orvin jail. In other words, they can't reply, so the journalist is free to exaggerate or lie.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Fratton Fred wrote: »

The British Broadcasting Corporation reporting British news? The shame.

One of the reasons the conservative party love attacking the BBC is that they see it as being very left wing and anti conservative. Labour see it as being a right wing Tory instrument.

That probably means it is doing its job.

Its not the slant of the content, its the content itself.

DEFTLEFTHAND

Breitbart?

Sheep Lover

The Mayo Star?

First Up

Waterford Whispers and The Onion.

It's all there.

branie2

Sky News is good

Barely There

I find After Hours provides very good coverage on court cases and insightful, thoughtful analysis of custodial sentences.

Precious flower

Boring username wrote: »

A handy tip I learned from a journalist is just to read the first paragraph of any news story. Pretty much everything you need to know is there, everything else is filler and the mandatory sound-byte from a slack jawed witness.

To answer your question, keep a broad range of sites in mind and just flick through them for coverage. Don't bother with in depth analysis or clickbait, since that's what they are all leaning towards these days.

Read the first line and the last line. Introducing and concluding lines/paragraphs Always helped when I was fighting through tons of history books in college and needed to get the jest of what I was covering!

MRnotlob606

The Guardian can be good, when they're not trying to promote their feminazi white-guilt-ridden diatribe

snubbleste

Tuam Herald

Mechanical Clocktail

MRnotlob606 wrote: »

The Guardian can be good, when their not trying to promote their feminazi white-guilt-ridden diatribe

It's not even funny. I had a look just there. Right now there's a big article on Amy Schumer with the caption "feminist honesty bomb". She's a horrible person. For example, shortly after Ryan Dunn's death, Steve-O was on a comedy roast. She made the most horrible "joke" about this guys friend who had just died tragically in a car accident. You can find it on youtube. Honesty bomb? She's an awful person that goes for crassness over wit. But what do her actual words matter if she can be held up as a success. Right beside this is an article about things Hipsters have ruined, from "beards to breakfast". An article about men ruining things, from The Guardian, who could believe it..

branie2

The Irish Daily Star

razorblunt

Cork Evening Echo if you need to know who was out drinking in Cork on a Thursday night and why that sign fell over in Ballyvolane.

Sever Tomorrow

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Yes, they take out the sky / Fox spin and add in Putin's spin.

They have shows where the hosts have creative control. There was an LGBT activist on Sputnik the other week. Putin would hardly approve of that would he? Abby Martin was allowed air her disagreement of Russian military action in the Crimea. I watch it for a different perspective, same way I would Press TV which seems to be the only network properly covering the Saudi barbarity in Yemen. It has an agenda but so does most media. Watch them all and try to find a balance.

dxhound2005

Ads by Google wrote: »

Used to like the Irish papers but they're too localized. Then I was on the guardian for a few years but lost interest in it by now as well. Not big on news anymore but BBC fit the bill for the last few months till tonight.

Taliban leader died two years ago, here's a photo of the new leader for about five seconds. Now let's tell the story with an entire backdrop of normal Muslims in a mosque.

Maybe I missed something but it was a bit mad to just show a genreric mosque as the background for a "western threat". I tried to listen but couldn't find the reason for it.

TV news suffers (or gains depending on your point of view) from having pictures. If there is video of something it will get on to the TV news even if it is of minor importance. Just because it looks good and they have to fill in 24 hours. So cameraphone pictures of stupid people standing with their children near the sea during a storm will get on the news when it shows them getting drenched by a big wave. And with so many cameras out there now, this stuff is becoming more prevalent.

That incident would never make a radio news bulletin. So if you want serious news you should stick with the radio. BBC World Service, Voice of America, whatever your taste is. People used to rely on shortwave radio to listen to these sources (which cover the globe) but now they are online as well.