Where do you get your news?

[Diagoras]

What sources do you use for keeping up with the goings-on of the world? I know of a few good sites that at least keep me abreast of major happenings, but what do you trust, or at least like to use?

[jake williams]

Al Jazeera English.

[Pogue]

Indymedia, BBC, The Guardian, Revleft, Morning Star, occasionally Socialist Worker, a number of anarchist things for anarchist news, etc.

[brigadista]

Al Jazeera on TV but mostly i dont read newspapers or watch the news

[redcoyote89]

You can almost always count on BBC News(for despite being "mainstream" or bourgeoisie) to delievering relatively objective news. Obviously anyone with half a brain would be smart enough to avoid the sensationalist and yellow journalism of most American news such as CNN, MSNBC or Fox.

[Brother No. 1]

Revleft, The internet,and other things. I only watch TV if i want to watch history channel for I dont,and wouldnt,trust the Capitalist news shows.

[LOLseph Stalin]

I use various sources. My teachers are always full of info. Plus, we're always talking about current events in class anyway. I also get alot of it off revleft and www.marxist.com (http://www.marxist.com). Ocassionally I even read Bourgeois newspapers and watch the Bourgeois news on T.V with my dad.

[Sean]

Indymedia is a good place to get buried stories, but if possible on major political events, I like to read from as many perspectives as possible and kind of work out the difference. If the BBC says 1000 killed and al-zareera says 10000 killed, I assume the figure to be around the middle.

Also, a really good but fairly untapped source of news is business news - wall street journal or bloomberg. Because they arent trying to scare the working class and when the goings on across the globe could cost major amounts of money stocks and shares, they are refreshingly bullshit free and just give the cold heartless facts. And yes, I'm talking about Rupert Murdoch owned WSJ. Just don't pay for it, in fact pricing out the poor is probably not coincidental for a news resource for the rich.

If you're in university, abuse the hell out of your access to lexisnexis (http://w3.nexis.com/sources/)too! (although, google news has a good amount of archives and is free)

Theres an art to reading the news properly and getting actual usable information from even the most biased of sources.

[skki]

Mostly Indymedia and The Guardian.

And Realnews, seeing as they filter all the important issues through Noam Chomsky. Can we get this man his own newspaper or something?

[LOLseph Stalin]

Many newspapers here in Canada really only express one opinion as much of the media is controlled by one or two major companies. It would be nice to have a left wing paper like The Guardian here.

[Hoxhaist]

BBC and Al-Jazeera and CNN but I dont trust CNN when it comes to Israel

[pastradamus]

Usually from The Irish National newsource RTE NEWS or from Euronews. Generally I find the two to be fairly balenced.

[JimmyJazz]

http://english.aljazeera.net/
http://www.commondreams.org/ (gathers news and editorials of interest to progressives from mainstream news sources - really valuable imo)
http://libcom.org/news

sometimes the bbc, but if you want an idea of how biased they are,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2673213.stm


Also, a really good but fairly untapped source of news is business news - wall street journal or bloomberg.

I second this. I read the WSJ, The Economist and BusinessWeek whenever I can without paying.

[DancingLarry]

I read lots of blogs which in turn tend to be full of links to both bourgeois MSM and smaller specialized sources. Various news aggregators, everything form Googlenews to antiwar.com to libcom's news page, @-infos and IndyMedia. In the mainstream stuff Asia Times tends to be pretty informative. Dead tree: I'll sometimes pick up the Wall Street Journal during major economic developments; their editorial shit is hysterical capitalist propaganda, but in their actual news reporting it's often the place the bourgeoisie tell themselves what's actually going on. Also, once I've discovered a news story and I want to deepen my knowledge of it, I usually search for it on YouTube, there's a lot of raw footage of important events out there these days.

[DancingLarry]

Theres an art to reading the news properly and getting actual usable information from even the most biased of sources.

Absolutely. As a very young man I was in military intelligence, and I learned to compare what I learned "inside" with what was in the civilian corporate papers. After a while it became second nature to read between the lines of the corporate media, and I still do it to this day.

[JimmyJazz]

their editorial shit is hysterical capitalist propaganda, but in their actual news reporting it's often the place the bourgeoisie tell themselves what's actually going on.

Exactly, well put. They are the bourgeoisie writing for the bourgeoisie, as opposed to fluff like Newsweek or the New York Times, which are the bourgeoisie writing for the middle class (and are mostly propaganda and moralizing with very little actual news content).

edit: Cult's mention below of NPR reminded me - Left, Right and Center (http://www.kcrw.com/news/programs/lr) is the best news show ever.

[MarxSchmarx]

google news and blogs almost entirely

[Vincent P.]

I'm not much of a news guy, so either I hear them at the radio (France Inter, neutral with a spoonful of reformism) or at wikinews in spanish. Wikinews is mostly written by South American it seems, so there is alway respect for "lefties" (Castro, Moralez, Chavez) and they highlight lots of their declarations which would be cencored on BBC. There is also a bit of distrust for american-related news. But I use it mostly to practice my spanish daily.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

I hate TV news and only watch it when there's something big going down, usually when a lot of people are dying. I absolutely hate how they spend hours covering bs while giving real news a short mention.

I read the NY Times and The Economist. I try to read Leftist Mags but I usually end up getting annoyed by their obvious bent. Oh, and I like NPR quite a bit when I'm driving and don't feel like listening to the same songs over and over again or Michael Savage isn't on.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Why The Economist?

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

I think that, despite being right-wing, it covers more than any other weekly and gives interesting perspectives.

Also, it makes both Time or Newsweek look like High School publications.

[JimmyJazz]

Because they talk about actual news and trends, like labor and capital flows, globalization, trade patterns between countries, new laws that affect the economy in every country, etc.

Middle class fluff like Newsweek is more concerned with crime rates and celebrity trials. And they virtually ignore everything outside of America.

Check it out (http://www.economist.com/) for yourself and see.

[Hoxhaist]

I dont really trust the Economist

[Bitter Ashes]

I use the BBC site mainly when I'm online, but I give Pink News a regular check too. I do my emails through Yahoo, so I'll occasionaly click one of the links on thier homepage too if it's got an intresting headline.
On TV I'll usualy watch Channel 4 news, mainly because that's the only channel I watch most of the time.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Mainly the BBC website and sometimes the websites of major newspapers. I also visit other websites that have news linked on them, so I sometimes come across obscure but interesting stuff occasionally too.


sometimes the bbc, but if you want an idea of how biased they are,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2673213.stm

You have to admit though that having only one party achieve 97% of the vote makes a mockery of the idea of an election. Why bother having one if nobody can contest you?

[BobKKKindle$]

I read The Economist as well. I disagree with their analysis on a lot of issues, as you would expect, given that the editorial line tends to be fairly market-orientated, as well as hostile to Iran (they insist that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons and is lying to the rest of the world about their intentions despite never having pointed to any supporting evidence to prove that this is the case) but each issue is a good source of factual information, and there are also some issues where their analysis tends to be quite progressive and can easily be used in support of a revolutionary position with a bit of alteration, such as migration controls (they support open borders) the sex industry, and drugs (they believe that both should be decriminalized). Consider this (http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13326176) article as a good example. I have a weekly subscription, actually, which ironically arrives on the same day as Socialist Worker. Apart from those two newspapers, I also read Socialist Review each month. I also scan the BBC website each morning when I'm having my breakfast and drinking coffee.

[Jorge Miguel]

I subscribe to a few publications, Unity (CPI weekly paper), Lalkar (Indian Workers Association), The New Worker (NCP Britain), Proletarian (CPGB-ML), Monthly Review, Northstar Compass and a few others.

I read a lot online, La Monde Diplomatique's and Der Spiegel's English versions are recommendable. I also read a lot of state media, RIA Novosti (Russia), KCNA (DPRK), Prensa Latina (Cuba), etc online.

[professorchaos]

Mostly the Daily Show.

[NecroCommie]

Sometimes Helsingin Sanomat, but mostly Revleft.

[S.O.I]

revleft, facebook, and the news obviously. and i find the norwegian national TV channel to be rather unbiased mostly.

but the thing about CNN and other private channels is to simply turn it around, and think the total opposite of what they tell you to :cool: or simply read up on it first

[S.O.I]

Mostly the Daily Show.

oh yeah and that :cool:

[FreeFocus]

I mainly read to get my news. informationclearinghouse.info is a main source for me.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I second this. I read the WSJ, The Economist and BusinessWeek whenever I can without paying.

There's a huge difference between business news proper, such as Bloomberg (the Associated Press equivalent for business news, which I read frequently), and opinionated "analysis" such as that posed by The Economist (which is most blatant in their Venezuela coverage).

I'm on the middle ground with newspapers such as WSJ, National Post, Globe & Mail, etc.


I think that, despite being right-wing, it covers more than any other weekly and gives interesting perspectives.

Also, it makes both Time or Newsweek look like High School publications.

Yeah, I must admit that, out of the three magazines (all of which I read rarely, if ever), The Economist is the one I read... just to read their anti-Venezuelan garbage.

[JimmyJazz]

There's a huge difference between business news proper, such as Bloomberg (the Associated Press equivalent for business news, which I read frequently), and opinionated "analysis" such as that posed by The Economist (which is most blatant in their Venezuela coverage).

Well, I find the Economist to have a tremendous amount of useful news content. And I find that they usually tell the truth, because they're writing for an audience that wants the truth, rather than feel-good patriotic stuff.

Of course they are biased against Venezuela, Cuba, etc. But unlike Newsweek or Time, they are not feverishly trying to make their readers biased. They are writing for an audience that already hated Chavez from the word "socialist". Example: Newsweek would probably have an entire article about rising crime rates in Caracas, whereas The Economist would only mention it in a passing sentence or a blurb article. Why? Because The Economist is written for people who live in neighborhoods where crime is simply a non-issue. And then, the remaining space is filled up with stuff about Venezuela's economy--sure, most readers of business press are only interested in Venezuela's economy because they were thinking about investing there (http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/apr2009/gb20090414_845484.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index +-+temp_news+%2B+analysis). But at the same time, that ensures that the information is quite accurate.

Another example: Newsweek or Time love to hate on China for its human rights abuses, but The Economist doesn't have a single bad word to say about China--they see it as the biggest investment opportunity in the world at the moment. Do I care about human rights abuses? Sure, but I don't want to read it from a hypocritical rag like Newsweek, which as one of the major magazines in the U.S. bears a major responsibility for the fact that Americans are clueless about their own country's status as the worst direct and indirect human rights abuser in the post-WWII world.

Anyway, for reasons stated I do trust it very much, even though I read it in a "know your enemy" kind of way. Like a union organizer would want to read the company's internal memos.


You have to admit though that having only one party achieve 97% of the vote makes a mockery of the idea of an election. Why bother having one if nobody can contest you?

It would, except that from my understanding, the Communist Party of Cuba does not run in elections. It considers itself to play the role of "guarantor" of socialist democracy. Candidates run as individuals, not as members of any party, and are nominated at the grassroots level.

No, Cubans probably cannot vote out the socialist economy. But clearly citizens in a capitalist country can't vote out their economic system either. You can change the government in an election, but I don't know any country with a system so democratic that you can change the form of government, so in that regard Cuba is no different from other countries.

So the portrayal of Cuba's elections as a "one-party election" is actually one of the big biases I find the article to have.

[Pawn Power]

There is so much shit out there one really needs to acquire a special 'news media scanning skills' to find the actual facts and decent analysis. That is, one can't possibly read all the news articles out there even if it is limited to only a few major sources- there are just too many- so you need to sift through and know what to look for and what to ignore.

This is requires using a variety of media sources. I frequent online papers and magazines (The Guardian, Harper's Mag, The International Herald Tribune), websites (Buzz Flash, CounterPunch, Alternet, Znet, Black Agenda Report, Democracy Now!, Indymedia, the Real News) and blogs like Lenin's Tomb. Democracy Now! produces the best national daily news by far for an hour telivision/radio program.

[cyu]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/newswire-f12/index.html?f=12
http://news.infoshop.org
http://ainfos.ca
http://libcom.org/news
http://www.reddit.com/r/anarchism
http://www.reddit.com/r/socialism
http://www.jaysleftist.info/newslinks.html

Here's a somewhat reformist list from http://everything2.com/node/1028056


International (http://everything2.com/title/International):

Independent Media Center (http://everything2.com/title/Independent%2520Media%2520Center) (www.indymedia.org (http://www.indymedia.org) - with branches in 22 countries)
New Internationalist (http://everything2.com/title/New%2520Internationalist) (www.newint.org (http://www.newint.org))
Alternative Press Center (http://everything2.com/title/Alternative%2520Press%2520Center)* (www.altpress.org (http://www.altpress.org))
The Big Issue (http://everything2.com/title/The%2520Big%2520Issue) (www.bigissue.com (http://www.bigissue.com) - originally only UK)
Guerrilla News Network (http://everything2.com/title/Guerrilla%2520News%2520Network)* (www.guerrillanews.com (http://www.guerrillanews.com))
LabourStart (http://everything2.com/title/LabourStart)* (www.labourstart.org (http://www.labourstart.org))
Asian Labour Update (http://everything2.com/title/Asian%2520Labour%2520Update)* (www.amrc.org.hk (http://www.amrc.org.hk))
New Left Review (http://everything2.com/title/New%2520Left%2520Review)* (www.newleftreview.net (http://www.newleftreview.net))
Gemini News Service (http://everything2.com/title/Gemini%2520News%2520Service)* (www.gemininewsservice.com (http://www.gemininewsservice.com))
Toward Freedom (http://everything2.com/title/Toward%2520Freedom)* (www.towardfreedom.com (http://www.towardfreedom.com))
IGC (http://everything2.com/title/IGC)* (www.igc.org (http://www.igc.org) - includes links to many more)
Protest.Net (http://everything2.com/title/Protest.Net) (protest.net)
US (http://everything2.com/title/US)-based:

Z Magazine (http://everything2.com/title/Z%2520Magazine) (www.zmag.org (http://www.zmag.org) - includes excellent international coverage)
The Nation (http://everything2.com/title/The%2520Nation) (www.thenation.com (http://www.thenation.com))
Corporate Watch (http://everything2.com/title/Corporate%2520Watch)* (www.corpwatch.org (http://www.corpwatch.org))
Project Censored (http://everything2.com/title/Project%2520Censored) (www.projectcensored.org (http://www.projectcensored.org))
Consortium News (http://everything2.com/title/Consortium%2520News)* (www.consortiumnews.com (http://www.consortiumnews.com))
Common Dreams NewsCenter (http://everything2.com/title/Common%2520Dreams%2520NewsCenter) (www.commondreams.org (http://www.commondreams.org))
Albion Monitor (http://everything2.com/title/Albion%2520Monitor)* (www.monitor.net (http://www.monitor.net))
American Review (http://everything2.com/title/American%2520Review)* (www.americanreview.net (http://www.americanreview.net))
American Newspeak (http://everything2.com/title/American%2520Newspeak)* (www.scn.org/news/newspeak (http://www.scn.org/news/newspeak))
In These Times (http://everything2.com/title/In%2520These%2520Times)* (www.inthesetimes.com (http://www.inthesetimes.com))
Asheville Global Report (http://everything2.com/title/Asheville%2520Global%2520Report)* (www.agrnews.org (http://www.agrnews.org))
CounterPunch (http://everything2.com/title/CounterPunch)* (www.counterpunch.org (http://www.counterpunch.org))
AlterNet (http://everything2.com/title/AlterNet)* (www.alternet.org (http://www.alternet.org))
Mother Jones (http://everything2.com/title/Mother%2520Jones) (motherjones.com)
The Progressive Magazine (http://everything2.com/title/The%2520Progressive%2520Magazine)* (www.progressive.org (http://www.progressive.org))
MediaChannel (http://everything2.com/title/MediaChannel)* (www.mediachannel.org (http://www.mediachannel.org) - watching the media around the world)
Canadian (http://everything2.com/title/Canadian)

This Magazine (http://everything2.com/title/This%2520Magazine)* (www.thismag.org (http://www.thismag.org))
British (http://everything2.com/title/British):

Prospect (http://everything2.com/title/Prospect)* (www.prospect-magazine.co.uk (http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk))
Squall (http://everything2.com/title/Squall) (www.squall.co.uk (http://www.squall.co.uk))
SchNEWS (http://everything2.com/title/SchNEWS) (www.schnews.org.uk (http://www.schnews.org.uk))
Positive News (http://everything2.com/title/Positive%2520News) (www.positivenews.org.uk (http://www.positivenews.org.uk))
Corporate Watch UK (http://everything2.com/title/Corporate%2520Watch%2520UK)* (www.corporatewatch.org.uk (http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk))
Red Pepper (http://everything2.com/title/Red%2520Pepper)* (www.redpepper.org.uk (http://www.redpepper.org.uk))
Urban75 (http://everything2.com/title/Urban75)* (www.urban75.org (http://www.urban75.org))
Undercurrents (http://everything2.com/title/Undercurrents) (www.undercurrents.org (http://www.undercurrents.org))
Australian (http://everything2.com/title/Australian):

Arena (http://everything2.com/title/Arena)* (www.arena.org.au (http://www.arena.org.au))
Crikey (http://everything2.com/title/Crikey) (www.crikey.com.au (http://www.crikey.com.au))
The Paper (http://everything2.com/title/The%2520Paper)* (www.thepaper.org.au (http://www.thepaper.org.au))
Green Left Weekly (http://everything2.com/title/Green%2520Left%2520Weekly)* (www.greenleft.org.au (http://www.greenleft.org.au))

[RedScare]

BBC mostly, because compared to a lot of US media, it can be downright progressive.

[Robespierre2.0]

I check Al-Jazeera and KCNA (DPRK news) daily.
I love Al-Jazeera, btw. On their youtube site, they usually have someone on location filming some of the action when something notable happens. It's refreshing to see other parts of the world, considering I'm trapped in the prison that is the midwest. I've never seen any other TV news networks do anything similar.

Also, sometimes I watch Fox News, and roleplay the 'middle-class, super-patriotic, pseudo-racist guy who yells at his TV'

[Dust Bunnies]

Sometimes I have MSNBC playing next to me on a TV, I use revleft, and I have a BBC feed to my browser.

[Comrade B]

I read The New York Times daily, which is unfortunately filled with a lot of crap, especially relating to Israel. I also find stories that I find interesting on this website, and look them up, and often check articles on Al Jazeera online.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

Middle class fluff like Newsweek is more concerned with crime rates and celebrity trials. And they virtually ignore everything outside of America.

No shit. Last time I opened one up, they had exactly 2 pages to cover everything in the world outside the US (though don't get me wrong, it's not like they covered much real news at all).

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

I read The New York Times daily, which is unfortunately filled with a lot of crap, especially relating to Israel.

I agree with your assessment that, in general, the NY Times has a certain amount of the normal pro-Israel bias, but I believe they're a lot more honest than many other publications.

Let me ask, have you had a chance to read Roger Cohen's columns? Unlike most of the Israeli ass-kissing intelligentsia, he's pretty honest. He's gone pretty far (by US standards) of ending the too-cozy ties between our countries and many of his columns were written about Iran. Not in the caricature of evil that has been in vogue for a long time, but he actually wrote about what he saw there. I actually found it pretty enlightening.

I've quoted this before, but if it wasn't for him I'd never know that Iran has 25,000 jews (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/opinion/23cohen.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=roger%20cohen&st=cse) (while US-ally Bahrain has, like, 36, which still probably still bests Saudi Arabia). It's stuff like that which would never get told by most columnists who seem to have an obvious agenda getting America to accept Israeli action against Iran.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

It would, except that from my understanding, the Communist Party of Cuba does not run in elections. It considers itself to play the role of "guarantor" of socialist democracy. Candidates run as individuals, not as members of any party, and are nominated at the grassroots level.

So the Communist Party of Cuba doesn't actually run in elections, but is in power anyway? They just use their virtual monopoly of Cuban politics to flood out non-CP candidates.


No, Cubans probably cannot vote out the socialist economy. But clearly citizens in a capitalist country can't vote out their economic system either. You can change the government in an election, but I don't know any country with a system so democratic that you can change the form of government, so in that regard Cuba is no different from other countries.Who said anything about voting out the socialist economy? Considering the widely varying opinions of communists worldwide, there should be at least a handful of socialist/communist parties in Cuba, instead of this suspiciously monolithic bloc.


So the portrayal of Cuba's elections as a "one-party election" is actually one of the big biases I find the article to have.The more nuanced version of events doesn't seem to be any better.

[Uppercut]

I get my news from Infowars.com, prisonplanet.com, and CNN.

[JimmyJazz]

So the Communist Party of Cuba doesn't actually run in elections, but is in power anyway? They just use their virtual monopoly of Cuban politics to flood out non-CP candidates.

Maybe; I don't live in Cuba and don't really know.


Who said anything about voting out the socialist economy? Considering the widely varying opinions of communists worldwide, there should be at least a handful of socialist/communist parties in Cuba, instead of this suspiciously monolithic bloc.

This sounds like a liberal objection, tbh. I know you don't take multi-party national elections to be the gold standard of a "democratic" system, so what's the deal?


The more nuanced version of events doesn't seem to be any better.

What exactly do you advocate? Do you just not want the body of citizens and workers that protect the revolution to be called a "Party"?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Maybe; I don't live in Cuba and don't really know.

Fair enough.


This sounds like a liberal objection, tbh. I know you don't take multi-party national elections to be the gold standard of a "democratic" system, so what's the deal?Well, ideally the political system would involve some form of demarchy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarchy), but I don't see why a sincere communist party should not be allowed to participate.


What exactly do you advocate? Do you just not want the body of citizens and workers that protect the revolution to be called a "Party"? I think if a political system is treated as a monolothic bloc rather than an association of individuals, it serves to suppress dissent.