I read/watch/follow (not in order)
The Guardian
Novara Media
The News Agents
The National Scotland
Double Down News
Aljazeera
Liberation www.liberation.fr/
Declassified UK
I also follow Sangita Myska
Jonathan Cook https://jonathancook.substack.com/
Chris Hedges
Grace Blakeley
William Dalrymple including his books)
Jason Hickel https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog
Richard Medhurst
Channel 4 News
BBC News - ultimately it serves the agenda of the British state. But over the past few years it has been terrible, particularly with the reporting on Gaza. We have seen endlessly reports humanising Israelis while doing the opposite to Palestinians. My elderly parents even stopped watching.
Sky News has been absolutely dishonest throughout.
Somehow I am subscribed to email newsletters from the Daily Telegraph somehow and I find it incredibly rightwing, in fact swinging to the extreme end of rightwing views, compared to what it was when I was growing up. With regard to war in general, I often wonder about their overt sabre rattling - they’ve been breathlessly excited for war for months/years now (with various potential battlefields). This is the mindset that I fear ends with our kids in uniforms dying for someone else’s benefit.
The Times (my aunt subscribes, so we compare notes).
Would never touch the Daily Mail.
Thai news, and independent journalists, many of whom I began following for safety updates back in 2010.
Not an exclusive list but I also read whatever anyone sends me, including if I disagree.
WRT the point about not having the time, I completely understand that but I also feel strongly that we cannot really hope to have a handle on what’s going on if we passively accept one or two sources, particularly if that is a newspaper or TV channel that we grew up with. Like for example, one set of my grandparents all used to read The Telegraph, occasionally The Times, while the other side read the Daily Mirror and The Daily Mail. My parents bought neither; I grew up with only the BBC. At uni, I started to read the New Internationalist and The Guardian.
I think that we can become dependent on being told what to think, and our national press is basically owned by billionaires. Add in the power of technology to spread disinformation and bias, and I think it is naive to think we’ve formed our own opinions (and I do absolutely include myself here). I don’t think I « know », but rather that my views are distilled from all that I have read, seen and experienced during my life. Patterns. All the times I have seen something with my own eyes, only to read or view a completely different version on the news.
Also, speaking for myself growing up in a pretty traditional household, girls were not expected or taught to be political. Certainly not to argue or dissent. We have the vote, but we still need to break out of the conditioning that politics is complicated, or boring, or « they’re all the same ». Or even being too fragile to look at images of what a bombing of a school means in human terms. We are protected by our media from seeing the true horror of what we are complicit in.
Also I don’t spend ages and ages consuming news, but rather about half an hour a day and probably save articles to read at a later date. I discuss a lot with friends and family, and also listen to podcasts/videos/read books on history and international affairs. Right now I have time. But there are times in my life where I genuinely haven’t had a moment to spare and it wouldn’t have been possible to just « make time ». Some of us have more downtime than others.