I’m a consumer of digital print news. I regularly go to 8+ sites each day and scroll through at least 150 to 200 headlines. Out of that, I’ll pick approximately 20 to 30 articles to skim, and of those, I’ll fully read six or eight, in-depth. To do that within a finite time frame, I watch few videos and certainly not live broadcast news. Those formats simply don’t provide enough information in the time that I watch. Most of the news sites that I go to are aggregators that skim the news and present a selection of articles published from a range of digital periodicals.
Over the past couple years, I’ve changed the balance of what I read. I used to read about 50% conservative and 50% mainstream (almost invariably liberal or progressive journalism), but I’ve now changed the mix to about 80% conservative and 20% liberal mainstream news or commentary. Of course, there’s a reason for that; they changed from presenting news with a liberal slant to being only a mouthpiece for regime propaganda, and yes there is a huge difference between the two*. They dropped the pretense of journalism. As you read my thoughts on my revised reading list, you’ll notice some criticism for conservative media as well.
I’ve commented about my news consumption in several past articles so a few of those updates are refreshed here. Before giving my active list, I’ll start out with two big web news sites that I dropped in recent years as I believe the ‘why’ is informative for what any reader ultimately chooses.
Dropped
Drudge report: it’s well publicized that Matt Drudge made a 180° turn somewhere during the Trump presidency, became his enemy and began carrying propaganda positions to influence his audience. At the time, it was widely believed to be about his discontent with Trump but his content since defies that explanation. There was some interest about whether he had been bought out. I just saw this week that he claims to still be running Drudge report, but the question is in what capacity? When I wrote about this before, I noted that he had taken his 40 pieces of silver and I believe that’s still the case. I have no doubt that he still carries on some operational or ceremonial position there, after all he is the brand, but he’s no longer unique as far worthier aggregation sites have more than taken his place.
USA Today: I used to read USA Today to get a surface view of the daily news, even knowing that they employed a significant number of liberal writers, but that was okay. I kept then and now, an element of diversity in my reading. USA Today transitioned to party propaganda. *How do you tell what is propaganda? When you go to conservative news and see all the critical facts that the mainstream sites are blatantly missing and also observe wide uniformity in the affirmative and omitted news in mainstream sources, even with ‘breaking news’, that comprises organized propaganda. It’s as if you can then see the script that was handed to editorial offices. I no longer found any value in reading USA Today, after all, when mainstream media are all reading from the same talking points, why duplicate it? When those talking points have gross emissions and distortions, they became less than credible for any reading whatsoever.
Current Sites
New York Post: After leaving USA and Drudge, I migrated to ‘Knews’ for a season, an interesting new Murdock aggregation site which disappeared for business reasons and has since reappeared, but once I moved on, I chose the New York Post to be my first up anchor news site. The Post featured several commentators that I respected much, their editorial instincts are usually sound, they broke several major stories for which they were at first roundly excoriated but then proved to be 100% accurate. I also consider New York City to be an accessory hometown in the sense that I visit a couple times a year for all the reasons that New York used to attract regional visitors. Knowing if, when, and how the city will recover from the last eight years of mismanagement is a helpful thing to track in the Post.
The New York Times (Email) Newsletter: I do not and would never pay money for the full-blown New York Times. What I get instead is free newsletter that contains a brief blurb about stories published in the paid version of the newspaper, but also what amounts to a steadily growing full editorial feature. I keep this newsletter (so far) to get the pulse on what the newspaper ‘of record’ is thinking. Often, it’s so far off base and filled with Progressive talking points, that I just scroll straight to the cooking feature image. Occasionally, I see evidence of positive introspection, usually after a crowd of other media sources have adopted the same thinking. The most gag inducing feature of the newsletter is the extent to which the editor(s) take themselves seriously, seeming to be extremely self-conscious of the self-promoted esteem with which the papers employees hold themselves. The refer to each other as ‘my colleague’ as if they were academics or lawyers; one can almost picture them with a monocle and brandy. Their greatest conceit is the extent to which they often knowingly omit half of a news story as if they could still claim objectivity if their readers don’t know what they’ve omitted. For their people, I suppose that’s true. I’m reading what they wrote, and yet I guarantee that most of their core audience are not reading elsewhere what they left out. Like some other legacy companies, the new woke radicals at the NYT have hollowed out a lot of the out guard, even ones considered historically liberal heroes. It’s now just a generational revolution in progress which could eventually bring this institution to the ground.
The Bongino Report: This news aggregation site has 100% solid conservative credentials and offers a wide range of writers. My only criticism is that posting what their cast of writers gives them, they post many rehashes of the same stories over and over; but this is mostly a reflection of conservative writers which should expand or diversify what they offer for publication.
Google News: Google News generates a news feed by AI (machine), tailored to every individual reader. No two people ever have the same news feed. I review what they’re offering as my principal exposure to mainstream media as those stories are usually found at the top of the feed. So far, the AI also still posts some semi-conservative viewpoints for my individual reading.
Newsmax: Newsmax produces its own newsfeed and like the Bongino Report, it appears to be uniformly conservative. The news stories are moderately detailed and stylized alike. There are no long in-depth articles but that is not noted as a weakness. I also receive multiple email article listings during the day from Newsmax.
Revolver: Revolver is a combination news aggregator but also offers its own content. It’s regarded as ‘far-right’ by the mainstream media but for reasons for which I’ve found zero evidence and as such, the accusation is a smear job. They’ve gained some notoriety recently for the in-depth investigative work on the Federal – (FBI) role in the 1/6/21 Capitol riot. That work recalls a similar effort a few decades ago when Matt Drudge broke the Monica Lewinski story. The mainstream media and official Washington have excoriated Revolver over the stories without providing any credible rebuttal. They know that Revolver is closing in on them and now conservative legislators have taken up the cause based on Revolvers factual deep dive. Revolver is the place where I’ve found both some of the worst news aggregation and some of the best news stories and analysis. Quite frankly, a third of their posts are far too speculative for my standards, and too often a story will go to a dead link. On the other hand, some of their investigative work is top notch and they’ll occasionally post an obscure commentator that’s incredibly brilliant. I also like that a small portion of their feed includes humor and non-political culture.
Facebook feeds: Facebook is now the news source of the masses. Like Google News, its generated by AI. This is the place where I find articles by Reason Magazine, Cato Institute, Wall Street Journal etc. As an adjunct news ‘service’, its fine, but woe to anyone that depends wholly on it.
I’ll throw in one other honorable mention, The Babylon Bee satire posts on Facebook and also their Not The Bee real news publications which are just ramping up. Their satire has hit so close to the truth that Facebook tried to shut them down for it. There’s been recent instances of satirical stories literally coming true shortly after their posts. If a reader has the discretion to parse humor into real trends, the satire becomes a useful analog for real news. Their Not The Bee news (non-satirical) feed is developing into an interesting project that shows some originality in topic and presentation. Look for both resources to grow, make a splash, and become targets of the State apparatus to be silenced and cancelled.
Read, your freedom depends on it.
See also:
A Primer on How to Evaluate Media for Yourself and for Self-Defense (November 15, 2020)