this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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I got a lot of my headlines from reddit. Due to the impending death of my favorite app (Sync for Reddit) however, that's coming to an end.

I'm now realising my Reddit experience had deteriorated slowly, just doomscrolling the hours away wasn't healthy and I'm even kind of glad this is a good reason to end it. However, reddit has been really useful for news, especially the comments (taken with the right amount of skepticism) could be very informative.

I hope Lemmy builds something similar, but the defederation of beehaw's news has been a setback.

What would be a good alternative, going forward, for getting news and backgrounds from varied, trustworthy en unbiased sources?

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[–] Cha0zz@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe not directly an answer to your question but I don’t believe Reddit was a trustworthy and unbiased news source. Hell it wasn’t even that varied imo with news mainly being about what’s happening in the US with a focus on politics. Tbh I really don’t know what a good news source would be that thicks all your boxes.

[–] tegs_terry@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah but the truth of the matter usually came out in the comments

[–] Cha0zz@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sure I agree with that. The problem is that the comments also often include statements without sources, plain out wrong information, etc. Much of which can also be highly upvoted. So even with the context of the comments finding unbiased good news requires you to be very sceptic and isn’t always straightforward. Additionally each subreddit has its own target audience which will also inherently result in some bias in both the news that is posted as the comments on said news. But tbh a perfectly unbiased news source probably does not exist as we are all human.

[–] tegs_terry@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago

You're right you gotta bring your bucket of salt for all them pinches, but it was often the case that if someone posted a bullshit answer there'd be a repudiation to it; if that one was bollocks? Someone else chimed in. Eventually you have enough to aggregate some semblance of the truth.

The pitfall is relying on votes to do the vetting for you, and reluctance to research under your own power in lieu of citations. Cumbersome work, but if you really want the real picture it's never 100% painless.

[–] lady_mongrel@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use feeder on android and have an RSS feed with news sources. You have to find them first and then see of they have and RSS feed.

Also you can make an RSS feed from mastodon if they toot their stories or use nitter to transform their twitter to a feed.

[–] kratoz29@lemmy.fmhy.ml 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have seen mentioned Feeder a lot as of lately, I have been using Feedly since all the Google RSS BS (heh, sounds familiar doesn't it?) And never looked for everything else (then came Reddit, then Lemmy lol) I never got rid of Feedly though, I tried othes like Flipboard but that one never catched my eye.

What would Feeder provide me that Feedly does not?

[–] sylverstream@lemmy.nz 1 points 1 year ago

I use FeedMe and connect to Feedly. That way I can add unlimited categories, Feedly only allows 3 on the free plan. Works like a charm.

[–] lotanis@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago

I've started using newsminimalist.com It's one of the most useful LLM based services I've seen. It's an aggregator that uses ChatGPT to identify the significance of stories and group the articles on different sites about that story together and then summarise them.

I don't want to spend hours every day reading news, but I do want to keep up to date with major events and it's been good for that.

[–] jjk@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Anything wrong with going to a news site directly? I find https://www.theguardian.com/au and https://www.abc.net.au/ work well for keeping on top of news but your country would surely have equivalents.

[–] degrails@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just subscribe to RSS feeds from your new sites.

I use InnoReader, which I prefer to Feedly. Syncs Free plan allows you up to 150 feeds and shows ads (which you can easily get around).

[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 1 points 1 year ago

I use Flym News Reader (Android app). It's open source and you can find it on F-Droid and GitHub. It's not updated anymore but it has the best combination of features (and I've tried a lot of RSS readers). You can easily add news sources because it has a built-in feed search (when you hit the "add feed" button). It can also import OPML feed collections.

[–] nivenkos@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think it's best to never read the news, you'll find about stuff that actually affects you naturally anyway.

Focus on communities for your hobbies and career instead.

[–] lz0@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I very actively followed news and politics a couple of years ago, and had been doing that for a long time. One day I just got completely fed up, and stopped. And holy shit, I've been so much happier and harmonious since then. Strongly recommend, 5/7

[–] Balssh@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I’d argue that one should not stop reading the news forever because you’ll just become increasingly disconnected from what happens around you. As with all things, reading news in moderation and not doomscrolling is the way I think.

[–] Rian@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah agreed. I think limiting it - great, yes, 100% do that. I tend to look through important news things on Sundays (usually via scrolling through a few sites - SBS, BBC, Al Jazeera, and then doing a bit more research about topics that interest me), and then not really engaging outside of then.

I'm not into ignoring the news and figuring that important things will naturally come through to me, both because there are important things that happen which won't necessarily come up in regular conversation, and also because people - no matter how much I trust them - are going to give their own spin on things. So you both risk missing out on important news, and gaining important news through a skewed lens.

(I don't mean to imply that the media doesn't skew the lens of news, which is why I visit a few different sites.)

[–] Balssh@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Absolutely agree with your approach. Also not being aware about news at all might make those in power get away with passing nocive legislation without much resistance from the population.

[–] nivenkos@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But you naturally will hear about important stuff anyway or see it on headlines in the supermarket, etc.

Like when the Ukraine war started, the Ukrainians and Russians had a flame-war on the company slack.

And if we really were going to die by climate disaster, nuclear war, pandemics, etc. isn't it better not to know until it happens anyway?

You can't spend your life worrying about things that will materialise decades from now, or are going on thousands of miles away. Focus on your own life and your own family and community.

[–] Balssh@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think Kbin replies are broken because I had to go to your profile to see your reply to me.
Anyways, I don't think being reasonable up to date with whatever happens in your country or in the world means "worrying about things that will materialize decades from now or are going on thousands of miles away".
For example, not watching news at all (I usually never use the TV nowadays) might make me miss some bad legislation that was/will be passed. I might miss protests against such things. Or I might be more prone to believing fake news about a certain topic (war in Ukraine for example).
But I completely agree one should not be 24/7 worrying about news.

[–] nivenkos@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But the protests make no difference anyway so why bother?

And why does your opinion on Ukraine matter, are you an admiral or field marshal? Can you change anything anyway?

Better to spend that time learning new songs on guitar, playing new video games, discovering new movies, or areas to go hiking, cities to go travelling, cooking and restaurants, etc. - actually enjoy life. It is short.

[–] Balssh@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I beg to differ, protests matter. At least here (Romania) they made those in power revert some bad legislation after seeing massive protests. Don't mean to insult or anything, but this apathic approach towards civil society is a big factor in eroding democracy.
Again, if enough people think a certain narrative then it will affect the events.
You can both have a decent awareness of things around you and enjoy life to its fullest in my opinion.

[–] Kodachrome@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hacker News has long been one of my main news sources. The majority of postings are tech-related but there's a lot of more general content and the moderation is very good. https://news.ycombinator.com/ . I generally use Feedly to browse it.

For excellent, in-depth analysis of world events/politics/economics there's the UK-based publication The Economist - https://www.economist.com/ - which is a paid service (expensive!) but has a lot of free content on the site, esp. if you're signed-up, even as a free user. It's not an aggregator though - more like a better NY Times without all the stupid fluff.

[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 1 points 1 year ago

Harmonic is a nice HackerNews app for those who'd like one.

[–] khaleesa@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I need to find a new way to scroll through random news as well, I used to like browsing world news and other random threads that hit the front page. Feed readers sound like something I should look into.

[–] mcc@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Check out ground news. It is a news aggregator, but with a twist: it aggregates all articles on the same event from various sites so you can see how the event is portrayed by different sites.

[–] tegs_terry@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago

Damn thats a good call. What a great site.

[–] god@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

go to ground.news, they have news from both sides of the spectrum and label them as such and it's kind of like a reddit for news?? world news specifically tho

[–] Radicalized@lemmy.one 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use an app called Artifact that aggregates news from many sources into a FYP and categories. There’s even comments for each article.

[–] sylverstream@lemmy.nz 0 points 1 year ago

That looks pretty cool, thanks!

[–] redditblackoutkekw@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Aljazeera is fantastic, I've been reading them for years and years. Their middle eastern news tends to be biased, but everything else is good. Of course, never trust a single news source on anything

[–] krash@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

I find Aljazeera as biased as fox news can be. Aljazeera is a impressive news network, but I would absolutely not recommend them as a news source.

[–] tallwookie@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

no source is truly unbiased, but I am also curious about where to find news/worldnews - there's a few non-beehaw options but they're not updated that often.

for tech stuff I always default to arstech, cnet, and slashdot, but I honestly dont feel like navigating between all of the various disparate news websites on a daily basis - or even a weekly basis to be honest.

[–] Trusting@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I honestly dont feel like navigating between all of the various disparate news websites on a daily basis - or even a weekly basis to be honest.

This is a perfect use case for a feed reader.

[–] tallwookie@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

any suggestions on a good feed reader?

[–] sylverstream@lemmy.nz 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I like FeedMe (Android). Syncs to my Feedly account so I can also look at the web on my desktop

[–] Lauchs@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For years I've heard feed readers were better than reddit, I suppose now is the time to test!

[–] Trusting@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago

Honestly they are quite different, there are pros and cons. A feed reader shows purely what you are subscribed to, and there is no algorithm that rates which links you should see first. You have to curate your own feeds.

[–] Otome-chan@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

for regular news article style news I use feedly and just have selected all the usual news organizations. for less formal "news" I was using reddit, but now I'm starting to use kbin I guess haha. I still use twitter as well.

[–] nevernevermore@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

I started using feedly, it's good! But then I realised I didn't actually want the news, I wanted people having conversations about the news haha

[–] metaStatic@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Feedly is my new frontpage

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