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Ask HN: With paywalls everywhere now where do you get your news?

6 points by dudus ↗ HN
I'm finally over the paywalls dancing and want to subscribe to a good source of news. I want it to have both international and local news if possible, be as neutral as possible and have long opinion or analysis sections as well. I'm so far trending towards New York times, but as I don't want to sign up to multiple sources I find it hard to find the right one. Maybe this is something I'll experience in the future with video streaming proliferation. But what is the "Netflix of news" today?

14 comments

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maverick74
It depends!

For IT, for example, my main sources are HN, phoronix, planetKDE and another webpage in my own language. I also read a lot of news from the POCKET articles that show up in my new tab page in Firefox.

HN (and Pocket service) provides news from all other web that I don't visit regularly but that, occasionally, do have interesting news (and not just in IT).

All the rest is trash (so, no paywalls - oh... And there's also a Firefox addon to bypass paywalls)

aslk445
NPR is great new source for local and international
eesmith
Democracy Now! is no less neutral than the NYT.
weiming
NYT is neutral?
dudus
I'm not trying to start a debate about who is neutral or who is not. As long as it's not too far right or left I'm game
eesmith
I think you should consider that "right or left" isn't the only axis to consider.

Do you want your news primarily provided by large corporations? Eg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times_controversi... .

Do you want your news primarily provided by companies controlled by rich, white old men?

What conflict of interest might there be if your news sources come from a tradition which favors the American white professional class over other people in the US?

Note that historically both the powerful left and right in the US were anti-segregation. Eg, much of the US labor movement was against racial equality. So just looking at left/right doesn't give a good understanding of the biases you might come across.

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zzo38computer
I get news from the CBC radio, rather than using the computer. (Although sometimes (such as on Hacker News, and on IRC and ifMUD and other stuff) I will find the news on the computer, too.)
shekhardesigner
Nothing beats the actual newspaper (online or paper) in comparision to radio or television if you ask me.

Reading your description, radio/tv wont fullfil the optiniated and analytical part unless you spend good amount of time on specific programs like talk shows or interviews.

AppleNews subscription might do some good?

buboard
I can't trust any of the paywalls frankly. They are in open war with tech because they believe they are stealing their monies [1] and with free speech because reasons[2]. My twitter is my best source of news, and a lot of the "paywalled content" is really commentary on tweets anyway. I'd much rather support independent investigators than agenda-driven bullies. I also notice that a lot of tech people are finally fed up with the constant drum beating. I 'd rather let the paywalls become their gravestones and see new types of media orgs growing.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/opinion/tech-monopoly-dem...

2. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/opinion/sunday/free-speec...

bjourne
I subscribe to two news sites with different political affiliations. There is no Netflix of News and hopefully there won't be because news requires a wide variety of points of views. Netflix streamlines everything to the lowest common denominator.

In the good old days it wasn't uncommon for affluent households to have six or more news and magazine subscriptions, so my two subscriptions are comparatively tiny.

srikanthsrnvs
I just bypass the paywall with the free monthly limit by masking IP.. It should become the norm to keep yourself on a VPN at all times in the world we live in today