We have some uplifting alternatives to depressing newspapers, and these are super-good places to find out what’s going on in the world, if you don’t want biased rubbish news, or have a breakdown everytime you turn on the TV news. There are good arguments for giving up news altogether sometimes (you can help more by doing stuff rather than traumatise yourself at all the goings-on in the world).
But having said that, we are a nation of news junkies. And if you do read or listen or watch the news (and most of us do, even once in a while), there are some far better places to get informed than the main newspapers and channels, most of which are owned by a few billionaires and tend to skew what’s going on to suit politics or advertisers or bias. And often don’t dig deep enough to give the real facts either (like why wars are happening, rather than just the casualty facts).
Byline Times is a super publication (it also has its own TV channel). Promoted by Hugh Grant (who famously took newspapers to court for hacking him and others), this is funded by readers and promises ‘no oligarchs, no government bungs and no adverts’. Beautifully designed to read online or in paper form by subscription (you can also buy their book on how the elitists have taken over politics).
It’s not updated hourly (more like weekly) but you get in-depth knowledge on what’s going on both here and abroad. You can read some articles for free, or subscribe online (and receive the newspaper monthly through your letterbox). It also runs an investigative journalism channel and a magazine-style Substack account (over 30,000 subscribers and growing).
Canary is a proudly radical newspaper run by workers as a co-operative that is independent of any advertisers, funders, companies, or political organisations or parties. It produces high quality journalism that is not afraid to challenge the status quo, and consists of several part-time writers and a few freelancers. In 2019, it became one of the first UK media outlets to gain a green trust mark for credibility and transparency through Newsguard and is regulated by independent IMPRESS (rather than itself).
Double Down News is a similar online (mostly video) newspaper that writes how conventional media is failing us. Its contributors have included George Monbiot and Chris Packham, and it has a reputation for truthful and hard-hitting articles.
The London Economic is an independent source of good online news. It doesn’t charge or put articles behind paywalls, so relies on donations. Run mostly by volunteer journalists, this is interesting stuff – a quick look at today’s news is about how Fox News are starting to not give Trump the support he hopes, and how GB News broke Ofcom rules by allowing Tory MP Jacob Ree-Mogg to present 5 episodes on their channel (due to impartiality rules).
keep up to date with real news abroad
The Real News Network is an interesting online TV channel, which again is funded by subscribers, so has no ads or bias. This is quality stuff, with a focus on environmental and political news. Often the presenters are local and experts in their field. So for instance if something is happening in say Brazil, you won’t have a BBC journalist flown to Brazil to report there (paid for by your tax money. It will be fronted by a Brazilian resident and expert journalist). You can watch all their shows for free on YouTube.
No matter whether you were in or out, EuroNews is arguably a better kind of news than ours. It’s not sensational, and reports in-depth on many issues (it’s pro-Europe but don’t let that stop you if you were not for the EU). You’ll learn a lot and we particularly like their NoComment feature at the top of each hour. Just 3 minutes of video news with no commentary. Very effective, more so than endless TV news presenters.
We live in a world with fake news being put out there. You don’t really know who to trust, and it’s a real danger to society. Austin Aries
If people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand the difference, and choose their news sources accordingly. Thomas Sowell
It’s amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day, always exactly just fits the newspaper. Jerry Seinfeld
