Best English News Source?

[Gideon]

So I recently (quite unexpectedly, long story) graduated. I'm moving in a couple of months (that was expected) but am going to be tightening everything up (fortunately I paid for my DX months ago, with the rest coming from the sale of my K2) as I will be without real income for a while (if you know any small non-profits/churches/small business that need websites send them to me!).

I rather enjoy getting the NY Times every morning, but will unsubscribing and just grabbing the Sunday edition from now on. But I'd like a good daily newspaper each morning and so I thought I'd tap into this particular batch of genius.

So this is what I'm looking for:

• I want full articles with decent formatting.
• Ideally, well organized.
• Good basic news coverage with the occsional interesting feature and/or good editorials.
• Moderate to liberal politics (ideally, no visible politics at all but that hardly ever happens.)

Whether I get this from Feedbooks or Calibre, it doesn't matter to me but I'd like a little direction. My previous experience with these features has left me pretty dissapointed (regarding the above criteria, especially 1 and 2). My New York Review of Books subscription is great, but not really a daily news source!

So what would you suggest? Thanks!

[Andybaby]

http://www.wrx.zen.co.uk/britnews.htm

of the ones listed, Even I have heard of SUN, star, and guardian. and of course times

check them out, see what type of news works best for you, and then check the calibre feeds.

[HarryT]

The BBC News site is my favorite: http://news.bbc.co.uk

It is entirely politically neutral.

[Seabound]

I like BBC as well.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The BBC News site is my favorite: http://news.bbc.co.uk

It is entirely politically neutral.

That's disputed, e.g.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-BBC-News.html

Although the BBC line tends to be the very fact people dispute it proves that they're impartial.

[HarryT]

For many people, if the BBC says something that they happen to personally disagree with, that's "proof" that it's biased, but the point about the BBC is that its Royal Charter says that it HAS to be neutral, and there's a board of governers (or whatever it's called these days) who ensures that it is. When they do get it wrong, heads generally roll.

I think that one can perfectly reasonably say that, at the least, the BBC are far less biased than any newspaper, all of whom perfectly openly have one political "slant" or another - eg the Telegraph is a "Tory" paper, the Mail a "Labour" one, and the Guardian "Liberal".

[gwynevans]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

That's disputed, e.g.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-BBC-News.html

Although the BBC line tends to be the very fact people dispute it proves that they're impartial.

It's disputed, but the facts behind that article are some comments from a couple of people there saying "we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness" and "It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias."

Also this - from 1:00 :-)

Note that this wasn't suggesting any form of political bias.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by HarryT

For many people, if the BBC says something that they happen to personally disagree with, that's "proof" that it's biased, but the point about the BBC is that its Royal Charter says that it HAS to be neutral, and there's a board of governers (or whatever it's called these days) who ensures that it is.

According to the BBC's own editorial guidelines:

Impartiality & diversity of opinion
We strive to be fair and open minded and reflect all significant strands of opinion by exploring the range and conflict of views. We will be objective and even handed in our approach to a subject. We will provide professional judgments where appropriate, but we will never promote a particular view on controversial matters of public policy or political or industrial controversy.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

According to the BBC's own editorial guidelines:

Impartiality & diversity of opinion
We strive to be fair and open minded and reflect all significant strands of opinion by exploring the range and conflict of views. We will be objective and even handed in our approach to a subject. We will provide professional judgments where appropriate, but we will never promote a particular view on controversial matters of public policy or political or industrial controversy.

Precisely - they don't present an issue from a specific political perspective, as most newspapers do.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Precisely - they don't present an issue from a specific political perspective, as most newspapers do.

But that's not the same as being neutral imho.
The BBC is clearly pro the London Olympics for example.

[HarryT]

We must agree to differ, I'm afraid, Sparrow. I personally regard the BBC as the best "unbiased" source of news that I know of. If you feel otherwise then that is of course your perogative.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by gwynevans

It's disputed, but the facts behind that article are some comments from a couple of people there saying "we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness" and "It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias."

Yep, I don't agree with the article myself - I was just pointing out there is a range of views on whether the BBC is biased or not.

Personally, I think it's impossible to be unbiased. (But then I'm biased.)

I like to get my news from sources that I don't agree with - makes it more challenging.

[Lbooker]

Some people are so naive.
To believe that a media can be neutral/objective is to believe that a human being can be neutral.
Guys, you have a lot, and I mean A LOT of reading ahead to catch up with the intellectual world. You are so 18th century.
If you specifically want to read about the media, of course you can start with Noam Chomsky. It is very interesting to read his experience with the false criticism of the Vietnam war by the New York Times. Very clear, very revealing, breaks many illusions, and totally indisputable.
You should also read books about the power of the unconscious. 90% of the neuronal activity takes place unconsciously, and it shows in the brain scans used to analyze how we make decisions or express/decide our tastes. Books by Freud and his followers of course, for another point of view about power of the unconscious.
Books of sociology about determinism.
Books of sociology about the profession of journalist, their many constraints, how they are recruited and by whom,...
Books about capitalism. Capitalism is not neutral. But most large media act as if capitalism were natural. So many debates are totally framed, and very limited in their scope since they do not take into account how things could be done differently in a non capitalist society.
People who believe any media is neutral should also read as many books as possible about as many issues as possible. The more facts you accumulate about the world, the more you see the mediocrity and lies of most media. Lies usually come in two ways: repeating what governments and corporations have to say about anything without letting people who have different views express them, and lies by omission.
But the most subtle way in which most media make you stupid is by not allowing enough time to be spent to properly expose the complexity and history of most issues. One or two minutes compared to a book that takes twenty hours to read. An article written by a journalist who only had a day to prepare it, compared to an investigative journalist or scientific journalist who spends years or an entire life researching a precise field.
And of course you end up ignorant because too many issues are exposed from the point of view of one specialist when in reality many fields are concerned.
In conclusion: if you really want to inform yourself, read books. Many books that investigate reality and how we perceive it and transform it in our subjective minds.
And sell your TV, your radio, and cancel any subscription you have!

[rhadin]

Once one gets past the New York Times (in terms of newspapers and magazines, neither of which is the BBC), it is difficult, to my mind, to come up with a daily alternative. But an excellent weekly alternative is The Economist. Unfortunately, it isn't cheap.

the problem is that none of the "better" daily newspapers are inexpensive these days. Even my local rag, a Gannett paper called the Poughkeepsie Journal, which boasts of being the oldest daily in New York state but never boasts about the quality of its daily news coverage, is expensive. A year subscription costs 50% of what the New York Times charges and provides less than 10% of the equivalent news coverage -- even of local news.

BTW, Gideon, if I had to give up part of the New York Times, it would be the Sunday version. I'd keep Monday through Saturday. Giving up Sunday alone would probably reduce your subscription costs by one-third.

[Gideon]

ok... Um, I guess I didn't ask properly.

Yes, I'm aware of some very good news sources. What I'm looking for are news sources that actually stay good sources when processed through one of our ways to get them on my ebook reader. Of the decent news sources, which ones end up as quality newspapers on my Kindle?

So what I'm looking for here isn't really a "best English newspapers" in general, but rather "best english newspaper I can get for free on my Kindle".

Thanks for the comments so far, though.

They're all biased as hell, btw... even the good ones. Anytime something is going on in Israel the political bias of almost every major newspaper just about smacks you upside the head (in either direction, it is rarely subtle.)