Some Ways to Stay Informed

Some people lately have asked me for some online news and information resources to keep up with what’s going on – beyond what the standard (American) television news channels offer.

Below are my recommendations with links.
Obviously I am a big fan of blogs as I hope you are too.  Booman Tribune and its European counterpart do an excellent job, both the front pagers and diarists, of keeping you up to date on just about everything.  If all you read is BT and ET, believe me, you know more about what’s going on than 90% of the rest of the United States!

But even with their prodigious and heroic efforts, sometimes it’s good to get out there and check out some other sites.  All of what follows is legally free to all users.

If you are able to listen to audio on your computer, I’d make my first stop the radio station KCRW out of California.  They run a morning audio feed that mixes both NPR and BBC news.  If you’re using a Macintosh, it’s available in your iTunes program under “Radio”.  If you’re using a Windows/PC machine, you can play the feed directly off the website.

One of the key reasons why both NPR and BBC are good news sources is precisely BECAUSE they receive government funding.  Since they aren’t (as) reliant on selling advertising, they can report the news without worrying (as much) about market share.  Therefore more information, less infotainment.

The BBC also has text news website which you can easily customize and navigate to find the news that interests you.  I will say that often the BBC has the best information about what’s going on in the United States that is NOT reported in the American media.

The BBC news site also has a variety of RSS feeds and even some podcasts.  If you’re not sure what a podcast is or how to get them, perhaps that’s worth a diary from me or someone else.  Essentially it’s like your computer subscribes to regular updates of files (the “podcasts”), which can be either audio or video.  You definitely don’t need an iPod or MP3 player to listen/view these!

If you want more, the next stop I’d recommend is Democracy Now, a small outfit that does tremendously good work, especially in interviewing important people in the news with views that are repressed or minimized in the mainstream media.  

Besides their text news, they have a daily 60 minute video podcast that is DEFINITELY worth subscribing to and watching.   The single best news show from the USA that I know of.

If you can watch streaming video, I would next highly, highly recommend C-Span.  If you have cable television on any level (including basic), this will be on your lineup at home as well.  A lot of people turn on C-Span and find it is “too boring” but give it a chance.  The more you watch, the more you will be hooked.

You can watch recent events in their archive but for my “money”, the single best program to watch is Washington Journal which comes on in the morning and is re-broadcast in the early afternoon.  It has a wide variety of guests and they’re all very relevant people – whether Bennie Thompson (just before passing HR1) or the Syrian Ambassador to the United States – gosh do you think he has something important to say? I’d say so.  Watch your C-Span and you will be glad you did.

If you’re doing all of the above, you’re approaching the level of being dangerously informed.  But perhaps you wish more.

The big three British news sources – The Guardian (sort of “liberal” in the American sense of the word), the Telegraph (perhaps “middle of the road”) and the Economist (perhaps “conservative” in the American sense but not neocon) are the ones you want to be reading.

The Economist has a lot of subscriber-only information but they are probably my favorite in terms of covering news in-depth, not to disparage either the Telegraph or the Guardian.  The Telegraph has a daily audio podcast feed as well and both the Telegraph and the Guardian have RSS feeds.

Ok, you want more?  Well it’s time to branch out into the wild and wooly world of the truly non-mainstream media.

Russia’s RIA Novosti has an English language website that of course is heavily focused on Russia and the CIS but is very informative.  You will find a lot of stories there that you won’t find elsewhere.

Likewise, China’s news agencia Xinhua has a very good news site in English.  It seems utterly bizarre that the organ of a Communist dictatorship has better journalism (sometimes) than the United States but it’s a bizarre, bizarre world.  Of course the one subject Xinhua covers very poorly is China itself.

German media heavyweight Der Spiegel also has a good English-language website.  There are lots of good and timely interviews on this website.

For a Middle Eastern focus, Al-Jazeera has an English-language website, complete with RSS feeds.  Supposedly you can also watch the new English Al-J TV station online (with Realplayer).  Watch out though as you will be shocked at what you see as Al-Jazeera covers “forgotten” stories like Guantanamo and Afghanistan.  I just saw an interview with James Yee and if you’re saying “who is that?” then watch the Al-J feed.

If you want to keep up with news out of Africa, the single best news site is All Africa, which has links to many, many African newspapers.  You can search for news by region in Africa or by country.  So if right now you’re interested in Somalia you can find out all the news FROM Africa about that country.

Some of the links you will see quite often on there go to the United Nations’ news center (or centre).  A lot of people have no idea that the UN even has a news center but they do and the English-language version is here.  It may be somewhat dry but it will let you know what’s going on so you can find via further research.

Speaking of which, sometimes you might be aware of a story that interests you and you want to find out more.  For that I highly recommend Google News.  For example, if you’re interested in Somalia, go to GN and type in “Somalia”.  Besides all of the more or less “standard” news stories on the subject, you can scroll to the bottom of the page and click on “Search Blogs”.  This is a SUPER DUPER way to find out more about any given issue and also find blogs “on the ground” at any location, involving any news event.

For example as I searched “Somalia” in Google News and then clicked “Search Blogs”, I found two very relevant links.  One is to the website Harowo, which I already knew was a great source for Somalia news but if you had never heard of them before, this method of searching would’ve brought it to your attention (English-language stuff is on the right-hand side of the page).

As I scroll down the GN (search blog) results, I see that there is a report from a BLOG that it looks like Canadians might have been killed by the U.S. airstrikes in Somalia.  I sure hadn’t heard that anywhere else and now I found a new blog (with podcasts) that might become my new favorite.

Ok, so if you’re doing all of the above your head is probably bursting with being informed but maybe you want more.  Here’s a couple of great websites for general information on the United States.

If you go to the House website (aka the Congress of the USA), you can find all kinds of good information.  If you scroll down to “Thomas” and the Congressional record, you can find information about bills and legislation and laws.  It takes a while to get the hang of navigating through this database but worth it when you want to find out about the laws of this country.

Another great website is Open Secrets.  The main page is a terrific database to find out which politicians have received money from which companies, etc.  If you look up on the top, right-hand corner there is a tab called “Databases”.  Open Secrets has a new database called “Revolving Door” to keep track of current and former government officials and which lobbies they now work for.  Go over there and click on Former Members of Congress for instance.  I looked at Bob Barr, longtime hypocrite and Republican scumbag and former CIA employee, and find that now he’s working for a company that lobbies for the ACLU.  Weird!

Okay so your head is now radioctive due to the extreme amount of knowledge you have gained but you thirst for more.  Of course you’ve also gone and read and kept up to date with all the standard blogs (most of which you can find on the blogroll at BT).

You can read excellent coverage about Latin America from the Narco News website (click on “set color” to make it white if you prefer).  There’s a freaking civil war going on in Oaxaca, Mexico and yet you’d never hear about it in the mainstream press.  I’ve been to Oaxaca many times and it’s a beautiful town and it makes me sad to read what’s going on.  

Any former colony of Britain usually has an English-language media source or two.  Here are some examples:

And even a few non-former colonies:

Sometimes the news from a certain country is exceedingly difficult to find in English.  For example most people in Armenia speak either Armenian or Russian and I am unaware of any (online) English-language newspaper from Armenia.  But if you dig deep into the American Embassy’s website (in Yerevan) you will find the media review, an English-language summation of all the Armenian dailies.

Of course all of the above are in English – there is an absolute wealth of information out there in a variety of other languages.

Ok folks, hope this helps you out!

Pax

Author: soj

If you don't know who I am, you should :)