Best News Aggregator: What Do You Recommend?

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cinemaniax7
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Best News Aggregator: What Do You Recommend?

Post by cinemaniax7 »

Remember when we could find out what's happening in the world by reading a newspaper or turning on a news channel? Since these are no longer serious options for people who actually want to learn something, it looks like I need to commit to a news aggregator — app or site — to stay informed of something beyond just COVID, the latest college scandal, and what Jeff Bezos's girlfriend is wearing. Plus, I'm still pretty miffed that I hadn't heard a thing about the change in Everest's elevation before it came up on FJ.

So which news aggregator do you use, if any? Are you happy with it? Do you feel that you get sufficient coverage of both the monumental and the trivial without the constant politicization that plagues so many so-called news outlets?

Also, what are your favorite sources for specific news categories such as sports, entertainment, science, and so on?
davey
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Re: Best News Aggregator: What Do You Recommend?

Post by davey »

cinemaniax7 wrote: Sun Jan 02, 2022 1:29 am Plus, I'm still pretty miffed that I hadn't heard a thing about the change in Everest's elevation before it came up on FJ.
This is funny considering it was in the Current Events thread for 2020...Maybe it was crowded out of consciousness by another type of news?
viewtopic.php?p=344247#p344247
I'd say the BBC, where this came from, is still a pretty good source.
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econgator
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Re: Best News Aggregator: What Do You Recommend?

Post by econgator »

I use Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me and the weekly Slate news quiz. That's about all the 'news' I wish to expose myself to.
heppm01
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Re: Best News Aggregator: What Do You Recommend?

Post by heppm01 »

I went through a similar exercise a couple years ago and at that time nothing really clicked with me. Currently for general news I use news.yahoo.com although I'm not especially crazy about it. There is more fluff than I care for and they seem to intermix their in-house "reporters" with conventional journalism. I've tried news.google.com but it seems it favors a depth vs. breadth presentation (there may be customizations I haven't stumbled across to modify this). For financial news finance.yahoo.com isn't too bad.

One thing to be aware of is that a lot of these sites end up being echo chambers. They observe articles you click on and gradually start feeding you more of the same.This is the exact opposite behavior that I want and I find myself clicking on articles of differing viewpoints just to keep myself informed of both sides and ensure that I continue to be presented with similar things.

eta:
If you have an iDevice, Apple News used to be really good before they made a big push into the subscription-based News+. Since then the amount of free content has shrunk quite a bit. I am currently considering ponying up for a subscription because it provides access to a ton of publications.
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Volante
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Re: Best News Aggregator: What Do You Recommend?

Post by Volante »

davey wrote: Sun Jan 02, 2022 3:58 am
cinemaniax7 wrote: Sun Jan 02, 2022 1:29 am Plus, I'm still pretty miffed that I hadn't heard a thing about the change in Everest's elevation before it came up on FJ.
This is funny considering it was in the Current Events thread for 2020...Maybe it was crowded out of consciousness by another type of news?
viewtopic.php?p=344247#p344247
I'd say the BBC, where this came from, is still a pretty good source.
Pfft, who uses that thread? Buncha nerds!!

*sniffles*

FWIW though, my RSS reader maintains 35 feeds. There is redundancy and some would never appear on J! by themselves. On top of that I don't -read- all of them, I'd say only 10% of what comes across, if that. It's a wide swath I've just built up over time.
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Re: Best News Aggregator: What Do You Recommend?

Post by twelvefootboy »

heppm01 wrote: Sun Jan 02, 2022 11:40 am I've tried news.google.com but it seems it favors a depth vs. breadth presentation (there may be customizations I haven't stumbled across to modify this).
This has been my approach for years. I find that just reading the headlines (most are composed in click-bait language) gives me the superficial knowledge I want - the same story will show up with different sources throughout the day so you get 10 or 20 mini-bites at it. I also haven't been able to customize it (I tried to block all Kardashian content a while back). Scrolling through the Entertainment section at high speed is all of that I want, but it isn't adequate for acquiring pop culture knowledge for Jeopardy! purposes.
In the Before Times, I pretty much depended on NPR and Newsweek. The problem with NPR was the long form stories with deep dives and interviews with victims, children, celebrities, etc.. I want information, not gossip (aka "breaking news"), and I don't care about crime stories, missing white girls, or courtroom proceedings. The weekly newsmagazines were good sources of fact based news without the speculation and sensation.
heppm01 wrote: Sun Jan 02, 2022 11:40 am One thing to be aware of is that a lot of these sites end up being echo chambers. They observe articles you click on and gradually start feeding you more of the same.This is the exact opposite behavior that I want and I find myself clicking on articles of differing viewpoints just to keep myself informed of both sides and ensure that I continue to be presented with similar things.
This works for me as well. You can always pick out the Fox News headline from the herd (Biden is senile and there are forest fires in Idaho). I click Fox for non-political stories because they are not behind a paywall, and you can always read the comments (for any story, even about kittens) for your daily dose of hate. When I want facts fast, it's hard to beat the AP, Reuters, or even Al Jazeera feeds which aren't behind a paywall like WaPo, NYT, etc..

My Quora feed gives me some ancillary news, for better or worse. There are some awesome posts on every topic, and an abundance of trolls as well, but it is easy to tell the difference. The Google filter tends to funnel me good Science articles, such as from Quantamagazine.org, etc.. so I don't even need to subscribe to them.
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Re: Best News Aggregator: What Do You Recommend?

Post by MattKnowles »

I use news.google.com and I think it’s good for keeping up and more than adequate for Jeopardy! purposes. You just type it into a browser and go to a website, no need for an app of anything.

There is a lot of worthless and disingenuous propaganda out there and its selection of popular news sources reflects that. Fox, CNN, and the New York Post are the biggest problems. If you log into a Google account you can hide stories from specific sources. It doesn’t work perfectly though.

It also has the problem that the best sources are often behind paywalls, especially the Washington Post and the New York Times. NPR and AP don’t have a paywall at least.

If you can afford it buy the subscriptions.
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Bob78164
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Re: Best News Aggregator: What Do You Recommend?

Post by Bob78164 »

I use politicalwire.com. I've even contributed a couple of articles there over the years. --Bob
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Re: Best News Aggregator: What Do You Recommend?

Post by tddeveryday »

TechCrunch is an excellent tech news aggregator that also covers business and politics. There are way too many news items to keep up with daily, so I recommend their newsletter, The Daily Crunch, which highlights each day's biggest news stories.
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CailinGaoilge
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Re: Best News Aggregator: What Do You Recommend?

Post by CailinGaoilge »

Not a news aggregator, but the Guardian (guardian.co.uk) has breadth of international coverage, does not use clickbait and is free.
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Rackme32
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Re: Best News Aggregator: What Do You Recommend?

Post by Rackme32 »

I use https://join1440.com/. One email a day with verified links to legit sources.
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Re: Best News Aggregator: What Do You Recommend?

Post by arjavrawal »

Echo the love for politicalwire.com -- Tegan Goddard does a good job.

I'm biased, because I work in the alternative press, but I think AANWire.com does a good job of rounding up stories from alt publications across the country. Could prove useful for the more obscure trivia that might otherwise go unnoticed.
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econgator
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Re: Best News Aggregator: What Do You Recommend?

Post by econgator »

The weekly Slate News Quiz and Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me! are all I need.
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