SydLexia.com - The Forums :: View topic

Joined: Dec 06 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 11244

For as long as I have been alive my parents have been news paper subscribers. Their parents before them were too. Me... not so much. When I first went to college back in 1999 my parents paid for a subscription to the NY Times so that I could have a news paper. Guess what... I ended up with a pile of news papers that I never read.

Back then, I just didn't care. I had no desire to keep up with politics or business. I would check the sports scores and be done with it. Now, as an adult out of college I do care what happens around the world... at least a little more. However, I don't read news papers to obtain that information. It is 2010, I get my news in other ways.

I hate commercials, so TV news is worthless to me. Radio news is never relevant and I only have access to it while in the car.

That leaves the internet.

So just saying "I use the internet for news" is like saying "I use a library to read". Specifically I use a few methods to keep up and current.

Daily I check http://www.newsmap.jp - This site takes http://www.google.com/news and scales the stories in a visible treemap according to how much press the story gets. It is drilled down into the primary categories that Google offers on their own news site.
At least every other day I check the Digg 24 hour top stories - http://digg.com/all/popular/24hours - Yes, it is media trendy and heavily distorted by a younger population, however it is a great source to find out what some hot topics are over the last day.
While Digg is great for media, Reddit is great for the geekiest tech stuff. I only check it once every few days, mainly because it is driven by linux coders and I can only stand them for so long, but it is a good source of current information every once in a while http://www.reddit.com/
My bread and butter tech site is MaximumPC - http://www.maximumpc.com/ - I am a fan of most of the writers and they update frequently with tech news that is relevant to power users and enthusiasts.

Those aren't the only sites I visit for news, but they are where I start. NewsMap really covers a lot of ground with big stories in all areas of interest, so it is a great starting point for the day.

So where do you get your news? If it is Facebook or Twitter I feel really bad for you, but I am sure some of you do start there.

Posted: Aug 25 2010 11:25 am

I just read forums like this one.

Joined: Feb 24 2006 Posts: 2578

GPFontaine wrote:

So where do you get your news? If it is Facebook or Twitter I feel really bad for you, but I am sure some of you do start there.

Well aren't we judgmental? In fact, a number of major news sources have Twitter accounts one can subscribe to, including NYTimes.

Posted: Aug 25 2010 11:59 am

I get most of my news from the AP feed on Yahoo.

Joined: Dec 06 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 11244

DarkMaze wrote:

GPFontaine wrote:

So where do you get your news? If it is Facebook or Twitter I feel really bad for you, but I am sure some of you do start there.

Well aren't we judgmental? In fact, a number of major news sources have Twitter accounts one can subscribe to, including NYTimes.

Fair enough, I was thinking more along the lines of following friends and getting news by reading friend's posts. You are absolutely correct that some news companies do offer useful and legitimate information via those services.

Posted: Aug 25 2010 12:23 pm

I dunno. I think the Facebook news dispersal system of "heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who it heard it from another" is quite useful.

Posted: Aug 25 2010 12:53 pm

Thanks Syd. I really needed to have an REO Speedwagon song stuck in my head all day. My father and grandfather both worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer when they were younger, so there were always newspapers around at my house, but now I generally just use Yahoo News to initially find the stories, and then from there I search several different sites because Yahoo has a noticable bias on some articles. Getting differing perspectives on situations is usually the closest I feel comes to the actual truth.

Posted: Aug 25 2010 01:16 pm

Factcheck.org
NPR.
Talking Points Memo (for giggles)

Posted: Aug 25 2010 02:49 pm

I tend to avoid the news as it's usually bad and just makes me depressed to be reminded at how fucked up the world can be. My dad is a news junkie and I turned out quite the opposite. I get most of my news second hand on here, or when my wife shows me something on The Daily Mail's website.

Posted: Aug 25 2010 03:45 pm

Pandajuice wrote:

I tend to avoid the news as it's usually bad and just makes me depressed to be reminded at how fucked up the world can be.

Don't let the news color your worldview, remember the news's motto is if it bleeds it leads, if I saved your life tomorrow via mouth to mouth but someone stomped on a puppy at the same time a block away you know what they'd cover first.

Posted: Aug 25 2010 06:56 pm

I go to www.disinfo.org sometimes

it has some interesting news articles

Title: Hugh Joined: Sep 23 2007 Posts: 1591

I listen to CBC 1 and read the Edmonton Journal :/

Posted: Aug 25 2010 08:23 pm

I read The Onion.

Posted: Aug 25 2010 10:00 pm

Valdronius wrote:

I read The Onion.

I've got their book [u]Our Dumb Century[/b], it's got their take on front pages from the last century, pretty hilarious.

Posted: Aug 26 2010 08:08 am

Valdronius wrote:

I read The Onion.

Exactly!

http://www.theonion.com/articles/smart-qualified-people-behind-the-scenes-keeping-a,17954/

This is as accurate and unbiased as anything from any other news outlet.

Joined: Aug 04 2009 Posts: 2515

BBC news or the Guardian, my favorite left wing newspaper.

Title: Titlating Joined: Dec 17 2007 Posts: 5042

I usually get the news from the forums I go to and then I'll research it further. I also listen to NPR when im driving to school.

Posted: Aug 26 2010 03:46 pm

To amend my previous comment, I don't avoid the news all the time. What little news I do tune into, I get from The Daily Show.

Posted: Aug 26 2010 04:04 pm

I have a "news" catagory on my google reader with CNN, CBC, BBC, AP, NBC...and even Fox. (Must keep up with the enemy after all Wink

).

In spite of that, I still hear a lot of news from The Daily Show believe it or not, especially regarding politicians. The writers of that show either have more sources than I do, or are better at digging through all the news stories of the day.

I have to say that I still love reading a newspaper in the morning with my coffee though. Our local paper sucks unfortunately and I wish I could get the NY Times delivered, but he Union Tribune is decent enough for big stories and entertainment, which is all I really need from it.