Obviously the major US outlets have become overrun with government propaganda and shills for authority. We never hear anything about the unfunded liabilities in this country, how poorly our foreign wars are going, how miserable a failure the welfare state has been, and how awful inflation really is. So, where do you get a more honest depiction of the news? Al-Jazeera seems to do well with foreign affairs and RT seems to give a voice to some libertarian thought, but where do you go?
RT is usually good, although if anything they’re slanted too far in “the other direction”, to make it seem like all the U.S does is kill puppies and that everyone who supports a heterodox point of view is a righteous freedom fighter.
The Economist does a lot of interesting world news that’s very different from what you get in a usual news report (they’ve been doing a lot of stuff about the increasingly large potential for a huge bubble pop in China for instance) and they usually take a pragmatic/pacifist look at foreign policy, and at least you can say that when they’re being statist they aren’t being as stupid as most statists usually are.
Reason and Cato also often pick up on things, and I find that more often than not if you find an issue that’s being neglected by the mainstream media a simple google search will help you find out the truth of the matter.
Good question. I get most of mine via facebook friends who are libertarians as well as links forum members post here. I should probably be more careful of what I share though, because of all the hacking and people disguising themselves and their motives (or rather the state disguising itself as a libertarian and spreading misinfo).
I tend not to trust a word the MSM says so they’re a non-news source for me. There is no way they aren’t controlled by the state, because they’re all the same.
I don’t trust prison planet and infowars that much either anymore. I think he speaks the truth a lot of the time and I doubt that Bin Laden was behind 9/11 but infowars and prison planet aren’t the best news sources.
I also don’t place too high of a value on news though, as having a lot of knowledge (especially that the state is evil) from your observations, patterns, etc. is probably more important.
“I also don’t place too high of a value on news though, as having a lot of knowledge (especially that the state is evil) from your observations, patterns, etc. is probably more important.”
This is very true. Although it may sound both arrogant and ignorant, it is much more important to understand generally what is going on and to have a good grasp on theory and history than to understand exactly what is going on all the time and not to understand theory or the historical background of things.
This is where so many people go wrong, especially in modern politics. For instance they might look at the “socialist” Scandinavian countries and advocate socialism without having a grasp on what the system actually is, or the reasons that events have turned out as well as they have, or any number of factors which have culminated in the realization of events as they really are. Once one realizes the fact that the mainstream news is going to be skewed towards a statist, usually nationalistic point of view, with a general effort to keep the political sphere within the status-quo point of view that people are used to dealing with, one knows most of what one needs to know about current events.
Focus on reading books, rather than newspapers.
yup! All data requires interpretation. One easy way to pass misinfo/disinfo is to make it time critical/urgent/new so people dont have time to think it through or verify.
I like the Associated Press. It does a good job covering the stories. It tries to be objective, but there are times when I disagree with it. For example, if it does an article on the economy, it will cite plenty of pro-intervention economists and no anti-intervention economists.
I have found that directly searching for specific topics in Google News is far more useful than trying to get your news from an editorial selection. My keywords include: “oil” “gold” “wheat” “rice” “flu” “iran” “hormuz” and so on. I might do a second search based on what I turn up from these searches. I was searching more diligently six months back when the news seemed a little more active. When things start picking up again, I might go back to more diligent mining of the news.
Clayton -
International:
Lew Rockwell
RT
Mises Institute
(I used to go to al-Jazeera but there’s so much left-wing crap on it that I couldn’t be bothered with it)
Local (i.e. Australia):
Andrew Bolt’s blog
Macrobusiness
Don’t leave out
And while I wouldn’t expect it to come up here, DrudgeReport.com is popular for a reason.
The Today Show and Inside Edition. I want to be entertained, dammit.
The Daily Show, Lew Rockwell, Intereconomia, and Left-wing radio.
Some news aggregators, they basically select specific news stories from MSM and blogs.
If i read the MSM then I take it from where it comes, to use another expression, I take it with a grain of salt.
news.google.com and If i must read msm i will read, guardian.co.uk, telegraph.co.uk, independent.co.uk, thisislondon.co.uk Also reddit and fark are good for news.
The Onion News
I lol’d 
I lol’d
I’m almost serious on that; my reason being the stuff the Onion posts is more serious and sensible than what the locals news posts about. I have all this stuff added on my FB, so I see it first on there. I won’t look at who’s posting it, just what it is, and when I read the titles of some of the articles I think it’s Onion, and then reality hits and it actually happened. Sometimes I think 2 of the local news stations around here are competing with the Onion for the dumbest shit possible.
For example:
Your Body as it Struggles to Process Top Ramen
Romney Tells Conservaties He’s One of Them
5th Grader Stabs Classmate with Mom’s Diabetes Needle
Father Shoots Daughters Computer over Disrespectful Facebook Post
Man Killed while Sleeping Under Truck
Man Catches Himself on Fire in Bathroom
All of those seem Onion News worthy, as well as an entire series on a tax service called Mo’ Money and how it screwed it’s customers over and the owners left town when things got violent, as well as articles such as “Does God Care about Football?” This is the “real” news.
understand what you saying and agree completely.
Infowars and Prison Planet. Also libertarian news sites.