Reliable news sources

[Craig234]

They're a news organization with an Arab nationalist slant (note that nationalist does not mean Muslim fundamentalist). The irony of that fact is that their leanings exist almost entirely outside the US political spectrum, and they tend to be relatively even-handed and diverse in their description of non-arab politics and news (they do lean left in their commentary, though). Furthermore, even though their reporting on the middle east has it's faults, they have far, far better access and investigative drive than any other news agency.

There are two different divisions. There is 'Al-Jazeera', which is for the Middle East - apparently the first news source not controlled by the country's government and effectively a government propaganda outlet for whatever country. The leader of Qatar gives them editorial freedom it seems and they have become very popular because of that.

They seem 'fair', they cover both sides - which pisses some people off. When I've checked them they're often covering some US official giving a speech - they seem to bend over backwards to give a lot of airtime to the US government's statements, more than I see on US networks; but they also give airtime to others, they aired Osama's messages as news, and they tend to have graphic coverage of violent events (which is accurate and news coverage but unpleasant. Darn war being unpleasant).

Then there is the newer 'Al Jazeera America' (formerly Al Jazeera English) which seems to have a lot of BBC staff and influence and stories more aimed for the US audience. I've seen reports on it which put US news channels to shame at telling good, accurate stories about the US.

The poster above says they 'lean left' - to some, the truth is 'left'. So no surprise. In fact, that seems to be the case with a lot of media - if it's 'accurate', it's 'left'.

If John Boehner were to sacrifice an intern in front of Congress with a dagger, a news agency saying he did - much less using the word murderer - would be 'left'. A news channel explaining how the Democrats made him do it and covering it with a tone of 'Democrats CLAIM the speaker did this - while ignoring their own killing like Ted Kennedy at Chappaquiddick, the hypocrites, much less their coverup of their killing four Americans at Bengazi' -that would be fair and balanced.

The only way to see Al Jazeera I know of is on the web, and it's not in English, so not easy to get much from except pictures. The same has been the case for Al Jazeera English, with cable companies refusing to carry it, but now that Al Jazeera bought Current TV, a few more people might get to see more of it. It's about time, with our 'freedom of speech'.

I don't really know of any 'left' channels in the US, I assume there are some in some other countries. There are some 'cover the news in ways that agree with Democrats generally' shows, some of which are more 'partisan' than others, but nothing even close to a counterpart for Glenn Beck and Fox. If someone knows of one, just link me a clip of their referring to Fox 'infiltrating the US' and having to prove not their accuracy but that they aren't traitors to the US when they add a city.

I'd suggest if you haven't seen Al Jazeera America, check it on the web and post your opinion.

 

[blankslate]

BBC. Its television broadcasts and website

And yes it's fairer on Israel than most of the American media, despite the claims otherwise.

Then various news sites. Reuters, AP mainly.

I'll watch MSNBC, every once in a while, but I check their claims against online stories.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

I just read the Reuters news feed.

 

[theevilsharpie]

I typically just check Google News. Most of the articles that interest me come from the New York Times, the L.A. Times, the Washington Post, and Reuters, although I'll occasionally check others. The only news organizations that I've actively blocked are ABC News (their pages show up blank in Chrome for some reason) and politically-slanted trash like Newsmax. I suppose Google could be censoring certain news stories, but I've already accepted the fact Google totally controls my life

When I'm driving, I'll using listen to my local public radio station, which carries news by NPR, PBS, and the BBC.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Excuse my ignorance, but this isn't the first time I heard Al Jazeera is good.

What are they? They're based out of Qatar and right next to Saudi, UAE, and Iran. Just by their geographical association, they 'sound' fishy.

What makes them so good and 'unbiased'?

See for yourself:
http://www.aljazeera.com/watch_now/

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Believe it or not...the Christian Science Monitor is pretty decent.

http://www.csmonitor.com/

 

[randomrogue]

Believe it or not...the Christian Science Monitor is pretty decent.

http://www.csmonitor.com/

What should I be looking out for? Right now their top 10 stories are as follows:

• Domenici acknowledges secret son
• White House targets cybertheft as worries about China mount (+video)
• White House correspondents' dinner: Conan O'Brien too safe for 'nerd prom'? (+video)
• Jesse Jackson Jr. guilty plea: 'For years I lived off my campaign' (+video)
• Gun-control bills pass Colorado House: Was Aurora a tipping point? (+video)
• Florida fireballs renew calls for early warning system (+video)
• Oscar Pistorius trial: Is it South Africa's version of the OJ Simpson trial? (+video)
• Carnival Triumph could have made port much sooner, lawsuits allege
• Fired for voting? Ohio woman claims she was fired for Obama vote
• Curiosity makes history with scoop – and begins Mars mission in earnest

Most of that is tabloid trash and fear mongering.

 

[randomrogue]

One thing that can be tough for some, especially with respect to Aljazeera, is hearing another side of a story.

Iraq war story for example on Foxnews might talk about how great we're doing but how we had our 4,500th casualty.

AlJazeera would talk about both our casualties as well as the Iraqi casualties and would talk about both some of our successes as well as failures. It's no fun hearing that your country is failing and has killed 100,000 plus people.

 

[skyking]

I prefer a source that typically uses and quotes many other sources. BBC does this consistently, pulling from Reuters, Al Jazeera, etc. At the very least I find them to be an interesting foil to US profit driven media outlets.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

What should I be looking out for? Right now their top 10 stories are as follows:

Most of that is tabloid trash and fear mongering.

Looks like you cherry-picked by using the most viewed "Top 10" to make your point while skipping over several decent stories like:

• Mexico state security officials collaborated in civilian abductions: Human Rights Watch
• John Kerry speech: US must resist temptation to turn inward
• Upbeat Rajoy says Spain is on the mend, despite economic woes
• Fewer boarded-up homes: Vacancy rate for US housing falls to pre-bust levels

There were also several good stories within the most viewed Top 10. Yes, there are some current events covered as well that you might consider "tabloid"...but these same stories are being run by MSM as well.

In my opinion, they do a good job of covering human rights issues and offer a fresh perspective on other issues as well.

 

[randomrogue]

In my opinion, they do a good job of covering human rights issues and offer a fresh perspective on other issues as well.

I wasn't cherry picking.

Humans rights issues. Check. Definitely something worth watching.

 

[Craig234]

What should I be looking out for? Right now their top 10 stories are as follows:

Most of that is tabloid trash and fear mongering.

I haven't read the Monitor in years, but it was a fine publication. I don't agree with your label for the sampling of stories they have - but check again.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

And slash dot; of course.

 

[blankslate]

Believe it or not...the Christian Science Monitor is pretty decent.

http://www.csmonitor.com/

What should I be looking out for?

The CS monitor is actually pretty good. The last time the Iranian nuclear program became the focus of all of the general media, CS Monitor published an in depth report that imo rivaled and at times exceeded the Economists article / analysis on it.

http://www.economist.com/node/21548233

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2012/0216/What-would-happen-if-Iran-had-the-bomb-video

The video is a recent addition to the CSMonitor article.

 

[lotus503]

I literally get my news from anywhere to start, wherever I happen to be hanging online at the moment.

Its what happens next I think is key, at this point I usually go out and try to find at least 5 corroborative sources, if I can I try to get right and left leaning sources.

Then after I do that I intentionally go out and try and debunk the information, when the dust settles I feel confident I have what I need to form opinions on a story.

Its what has also led me to believe that mainstream news is about profit and propaganda.

No mainstream news source is unbiased they all have to sell ads

 

[Theb]

Excuse my ignorance, but this isn't the first time I heard Al Jazeera is good.

What are they? They're based out of Qatar and right next to Saudi, UAE, and Iran. Just by their geographical association, they 'sound' fishy.

What makes them so good and 'unbiased'?

It's mostly about what they don't do. They don't frame every issue around hurting/helping republicans or democrats. They don't dedicate all of their programming to every stupid detail of something like a cruise ship losing power. They don't show breaking news alerts for celebrity romance updates.

I'm not saying Al Jazeera is amazing. They just report the news which is generally either boring or horrifying. What I'm saying is our cable news networks suck so hard.

 

[randomrogue]

Americans, unfortunately, have gotten used to visiting news sites that agree with them and are enjoyable. They don't visit the "other side" since it causes them discomfort to hear their point of view. Just look at P/N here.

Aljazeera takes it to a whole new level. Sometimes you will hear a point of view there that is not on either one of our "scales".

It's a good source for some of the big stories.

 

[Craig234]

One thing to remember is that the people who oppose Al Jazeera America being available on cable here aren't opposing watching it - they're opposing you and me watching it.

Now, is there ever a case for saying 'that channel is so inaccurate and misleading it shouldn't even be on the air?' In theory, maybe that's the case, though I can't think of one, the closest would be Fox. That'd be something to debate when it runs into our theory of free speech for everyone to get info and decide.

But the thing here is that Al Jazeera English is not only nowhere near that, IMO it's better than about any of our US sources.

The main basis for opposition seems to be ignorant 'it sounds middle eastish so screw it'.

 

[Xonoahbin]

I read the title and came in to mention Al Jazeera, but that's been done extensively. I will add that I've been reading Al Jazeera daily for about seven years and have witnessed a significant increase in their quality and fairness in reporting.

Certain topics they're just not going to cover favorably (see: Israel, though they do a better job with it than I'd expect), but for the most part I've seen excellent coverage from them, particularly on Africa and Asia, which are places that often go without solid international coverage.

They're not completely unbiased, but they do a damn good job at trying to present facts and they also tend to give coverage to multiple perspectives whenever possible. Great source IMO.

 

[Theb]

Believe it or not...the Christian Science Monitor is pretty decent.

http://www.csmonitor.com/

Christian Science Monitor is great, unfortunately their name causes a lot of people to prejudge them. The fact that you and Craig234 are both endorsing them speaks volumes about their reporting.

 

[Craig234]

Christian Science Monitor is great, unfortunately their name causes a lot of people to prejudge them. The fact that you and Craig234 are both endorsing them speaks volumes about their reporting.

Just to strengthen that support slightly - they are an 'under the radar' paper that I'm surprised is still in business.

In these times of really crap news growing and quality investigative reporting and even reporting generally being slashed, they deserve plugs for people to consider subscribing.

Citizens need to learn the need to support journalism in light of the traditional funding of advertising going down.

(Analogously, the issue of corrupt money buying our political system could also be helped if citizens would spend on good interests, but under 2% do and no sign of that changing).

When someone else is paying for the content, your influence goes way down. Then you're only the person getting free content someone else pays for, so it's for their benefit, not yours - it only has to be 'good enough' to get enough people to consume it, but it's not really for your benefit.

Voices saying 'don't write about that controversial issue, it might offend someone and our sponsors don't want that' get a lot louder and you can read the latest celebrity gossip instead of investigative news that will offense people's partisan preferences. Take HBO as an analogy, where viewers directly pay for the shows. They can air things without concern for sponsors.

 

[Xonoahbin]

Christian Science Monitor is great, unfortunately their name causes a lot of people to prejudge them. The fact that you and Craig234 are both endorsing them speaks volumes about their reporting.

I'll add to that as well. I have always found the CSM to be a highly reputable and trustworthy source. Their material is solid. I identify as an atheist and have no problem with them based on their name, that's for sure.