News - Online vs paper

[Jason]

I had an British professor suggest that we read foreign news services as well so I’ve incorporated the economist and Al Jazeera. It’s often interesting to read US news from a non-US source. Contextualizes it within the entire international community.

[Riggerjack]

I agree, but Al Jazeera has few well thought out pieces, and lots of clickbait "here's another thing wrong with the US" pieces. It's good to see the local from a foreign perspective, but I prefer the patterns of bias to be less blatant. Al Jazeera is best for a foreign perspective on foreign places.

The economist is better than most sources in the states, but their main works are still pretty low information quality. I do love reading the economist's debate section, though.

[ThisDinosaur]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/opin ... media.html
Just read this and thought it would fit here.

GOP pundits who didn't support Trump were replaced in liberal media outlets by pro-Trumpers. Because it would have looked too biased to have no one arguing For him. I don't see how any form of media is safe from this worsening of bias effect.

[Riggerjack]

GOP pundits who didn't support Trump were replaced in liberal media outlets by pro-Trumpers. Because it would have looked too biased to have no one arguing For him.

Close.

But especially once he won the nomination this skepticism was often filtered out of cable coverage, because the important thing was to maintain the partisan shouting-match model

Not because it would look too biased, bias is part of the package they sell. But because it is necessary for both sides to be emotionally invested, otherwise an argument could dry up to a debate. And we're selling eyes on screen here, not providing unbiased information. Objectivity is bad for ratings.

[jennypenny]

In the current climate, it's more important to identify the great journalists and read their stuff regardless of where they work. Reading their stuff will give you most of what you need. If you follow them on social media, they'll share great pieces by other writers which will help you expand your cadre of must-read journalists. I think twitter is the easiest place to do this at the moment.

An example to make the point ... no one considers USA Today a 'must read' but Alan Gomez does quality work covering immigration issues and Kevin Johnson does a good job covering the Justice Department. Their pieces tend to be shorter because of where they work but it's quality news nonetheless. Another example would be Matt Taibbi. He's terrific but no one reads Rolling Stone for its news coverage.

If you don't do social media, sign up for the feeds/emails at Morning Consult. They'll send links to all the relevant articles of the day in morning and evening emails.