I wouldn’t say I get this question a lot, but it has come up several times in the past few months: friends asking me how I keep up with current events and how they, too, can get in on that. Most of the time, the question comes with a sense of frustration or overwhelmedness; there is so much news media out there, where does one even start? And I have been thinking about my answer to this query—when did I decide to try and keep up with the news? And how did I go about it? I remember being completely baffled by all the options and being convinced that, no matter how much I read, I would never really be “in the know” because there was just too much to know.
I would say the first step is to stop thinking like that. It’s true that there is a ridiculous amount of information out there, but knowing what’s going on around you doesn’t preclude reading it all. In fact, for the most part, news sources are all presenting the exact same events (just with different biases, perspectives, and agendas).
The second step is to find one news source you like. Just one. Really. If you have strong political/social views, you might want to pick a site that best correlates with them (liberal media can be really frustraying/annoying to staunch conservatives—and vice versa, I am sure). If you are, as I am, more or less a centrist, you can choose from either side and just try to keep a healthy perspective. Do be aware that most media is liberal. It’s the nature of the beast. When it comes to picking your source, I would say start with a big name paper/site; they usually have the most access to information, better writing/editing standards, and a tradition of accuracy. (I’ll get into specifics about different sources further down).
Once you’ve picked a source, make yourself check it every day or so (almost every major news outlet has an app for cell phones, so that’s a good way to sort of keep it around if you aren’t tethered to a desk—and thus, the internet—all day). Even if all you do is skim the homepage, build this into your routine! Skimming the front page of a newspaper is a great way to get acquainted with things, and news media is designed with all the important stuff appearing first. So even if you read just a headline and a few sentences, you can get the general gist of things. You may not know whether or not we should be at war, but you will at least know we are.
And then, as time allows, read articles that interest you. If you don’t have a clear sense of your interests yet, just read what catches your eye. Don’t worry—the media is designed to hook you in :) And also, don’t worry about reading everything. If you take the time to skim the homepage, you’ll get a general overview of what’s going on out there. There’s no need to know all the finer points about everything. You’ll have your areas of interest, and people you know will have other areas of interest. Converse. Talking about the news is a great way to keep up with it :)
The most important thing to do as you are skimming and reading is think. The media is not the voice of God. It was not handed down to Moses on the Mount. While the major sites can be trusted to (more or less) accurately present the historical information of a situation, they are unabashed in their biases (which means that the facts they include and exclude are very telling). A healthy dose of cynicism is a must when reading the news. It’s okay to read an article and disagree.
If, after a while, you find yourself always disagreeing with what you read or often frustrated with the articles, it’s probably time to find a new media source. That was my experience with CNN. I started trying to get into the news by reading cnn.com. It worked great—CNN has a wide range of coverage that I appreciated then (and I still do). But they have a few persistent undertones that I didn’t like, and after a while, it was more than I could handle. So now I read the New York Times. NYT is far more liberal than I am, but as long as I bear that in mind, I’m pretty happy with their reporting. And they have David Brooks :)
The more you read your one source, the more you may want to read other perspectives on the same topic. Is the recession really in recovery? Maybe your source says yes, but you wonder. So dig around—try another site, see what they say. Balance the views. Sometimes all I read is a bunch of articles on one single issue. Other times, I just skim a few homepages and stop there.
That’s really all there is to it. If you start small, skim the headlines, and then follow up on what interests you, you’ll find that you are “in the know” before too long. The nice thing about news is that it changes every day—so you can always jump right in and be up to date before very long!
Sidebar: Choosing a News Source
I had a lot of trouble trying to find a news source originally. I wanted something conservative—but not extremely so. Any cynic will tell you, there’s just not a lot of conservative media out there. But thanks to the internet machine, there is more than there used to be. Here’s a few tips (just from my experience; and I really am not an expert):
Conservative News Sources
The National Review Online is probably the most mainstream conservative site. It’s not moderate. It’s very conservative—sometimes its too much for me. BUT they do have an awesome string of links on their front page that I love to click through (links from other sites and writers).
The Wall Street Journal is a little funny. People will tell you it’s conservative, and it is, but that’s mostly because it’s a business paper. It’s fiscally conservative. But I’ve found that the WSJ staff articles tend to be socially liberal; the op-eds and contributed pieces are definitely conservative, though, and I often find gems in there.
I don’t read The Chicago Tribune, or The New York Post, but both of them are historically conservative (for what that’s worth).
Liberal News Sources
As said, my go-to source is the New York Times—which is, without question, liberal media. However, the writing is good and their reputation for accuracy is solid. Anyway, yes, I read NYT, but sometimes I head over to National Review Online to balance things out a little, too.
Other than NYT, I don’t follow liberal media; but if that is where you lean, you might want to try: The Washington Post, USA Today, or the Los Angeles Times. (I hate the LA Times, for what it’s worth.)
Other News Sources
CNN and Huffington Post lean to the left, but (whether intentionally or not), they tend to be more moderate than the aforementioned liberal sources.
BBC News America and The Economist are British productions that also offer a good perspective (I wouldn’t make a foreign source my one and only source, but they are great resources, nonetheless).
Magazines like Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report usually also have good articles, but since they aren’t published daily, I wouldn’t rely on them as heavily. Plus, they tend to be public-interest-oriented. So you get one or two articles on the week’s hottest stories—which is a good way to supplement your primary source sometimes—but may leave out other stories that you should know about it.
And there’s always The Onion—which, as many of you know, is America’s finest news source.
