How can we improve news readers and news feeds?

No, they are terrible experiences. The most frustrating part is that I’m not in control of what I read.

I use feedbin to aggregate RSS feeds. I control what I read. If someone I follow publishes something, it’s in my feed, in fucking chronological order.

There are no ads, no algorithms, no NLP, no comments, and no pop-ups demanding my email to continue reading.

No.

The fact of the state of journalism of "if it bleeds it leads". I don't want Debbie Downer OR Pollyanna news. I want realistic news. But that has never sold well so nobody writes it.

Best of luck. Maybe aim for unbiased and/or balanced sentiments in the article?

I don't read my news there. I much prefer a simple HTML layout, with the topic story as the subject, a little blurb underneath, then I can click into the article if I want to.