Ask HN: What non-American news sources do you recommend? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What non-American news sources do you recommend?

40 pointsskrillhouse51 comments

Seeking generally well-reputed news sources for world politics, tech, economics, and foreign policy that are run outside of the United States. Coverage of the US is acceptable, but should originate from non-American sources.

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My go-to news source is Radio New Zealand International. I have their world news tab bookmarked: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world

They use outside newswires to supplement, but the important part to me is that they are curating it.

The reasons I like them are:

1. There is no advertising. They are not trying to get you to click their headline to increase traffic.

2. There are no donations. No temptation to write for a 'left', 'right' or 'middle' audience.

3. They don't care about the US (where I live). They only report on US matters that are important. Crucial stores from my country are not mixed in with stories that are not meaningful or essential.

4. They are funded by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.

5. And if the grid goes down, you can get them on shortwave, so they are dependable. (I discovered them on shortwave during an extended power outage)

They're very useful when the US/World news is overwhelming (i.e., Jan 6, etc).

Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Australia) https://www.abc.net.au/

British Broadcasting Corporation (United Kingdom) https://www.bbc.com/

Deutsche Welle (Germany) https://www.dw.com/en/top-stories/s-9097

The Times of India (India) https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

The Hindu (India) https://www.thehindu.com/

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung is a delightfully centrish-center-right liberal publication.

https://www.nzz.ch/

Switzerland, and the German speaking world in general are almost always on the sidelines in issues of politics, tech, economics and especially foreign policy when it’s outside, or merely adjacent to continental Europe.

For issues in Europe, well, it’s Swiss & German speaking. In US affairs, of which there is slightly too much coverage, it manages to avoid the polemics present in German-German publications.

https://www.nzz.ch/

Some I find relevant: Euronews[0], Politico Europe[1] and RT[2]. Every news source has a bias, you just have to acknowledge it.

[0] https://www.euronews.com [1] https://www.politico.eu [2] https://www.rt.com

I had the impression that RT is a propaganda tool[1] for the Russian government not an independent news organization.

[1]: https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-propaganda-disinforma...

> I had the impression that RT is a propaganda tool[1] for the Russian government not an independent news organization.

Surely then you will likewise acknowledge that Euronews is a propaganda tool for the European Union not an independent news organization.

Euro News is more complicated, it’s partially owned by EU member states but also non members like Russian and Egyptian State TV.

> Every news source has a bias, you just have to acknowledge it.

I'd go further, and say that all corporate news is literally propaganda. It's not done by lying; it's a question of what you include and what you omit, and how you juxtapose unrelated stories. So I read the Guardian online, and I watch BBC main evening news, but I can't help questioning everything I see or read to work out what the angle is. It feels a bit like I imagine OCD must feel.

El Reg is good for a lighthearted approach to tech news.

You can't get fair coverage of the Middle East from the mainstream, AFAICS. Jonathan Cook is good.

On Scottish politics, Craig Murray was superb, until they locked him up.

I'm a leftie, but for British politics I like Peter Oborne and Peter Hitchens from the Daily Mail, a right-wing red-top.

I like Media Lens. They've not been publishing a lot lately, and their aim is unwavering: their entire purpose is exposing bias and propaganda in the british media, especially the BBC and The Guardian. So it can seem rather repetitive. But their articles are effectively closely-argued critiques of the mainstream coverage of important events, so it forms a kind of press-review. They write long-form, thoughtful articles.

I voted-up the question, because to tell the truth, I would also like to know where I can read daily general reporting, in English, that doesn't have a hidden agenda. I'm consuming less and less news recently. It makes me bilious.

RT - Russia Today is not a credible news source.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_(TV_network)

RT may be a propaganda outlet, but so is pretty much everything else bigger than Joe Rando's blog. Better to use those that you know and can correct for the bias of than being led by those with unknown motivations who keep their backers hidden. Can you honestly hold RT as "worse" than outlets like the New York Times that also uncritically function as establishment mouthpieces?

Yes, way worse.

Nice attempt to spin the question. Sounds familiar at RT

It's not even the same ballpark

It's just as credible as any of the mainstream US networks like CNN, MSNBC et al.

Other commenters here want to downplay RT's egregious propaganda, comparing it to the equivalent of other sources. But while I think many mainstream sources: NYT, WSJ, Al Jazeera, BBC, etc. have slants and glaring issues, all pale in comparison to the extreme level of RT.

Just yesterday they had an article from a Charlottesburg "Unite the Right" speaker lamenting why couldn't Americans overthrow their government like the Afghans did[0].

Journalists in Russia that don't unequivocally tout the Russian government narrative run the risk of jail or death.[1]

Every single article has blatant unidirectional spin: "US bad, Russia good."

None are on this level. Any sort of trying to obtain pieces of valuable info from it are infected.

[0]https://www.rt.com/op-ed/537723-americans-control-afghanista...

[1]https://rsf.org/en/russia

> Just yesterday they had an article from a Charlottesburg "Unite the Right" speaker lamenting why couldn't Americans overthrow their government like the Afghans did[0].

How is that any different than all the Navalny stuff being run in American and EU outlets? Cold War is Cold War, objectivity cannot be expected in any reporting, regardless of where it comes from.

> Journalists in Russia that don't unequivocally tout the Russian government narrative run the risk of jail or death.[1]

Assange is being persecuted for journalism by the US - are journalists here really more free to speak the truth? Is our media really any less beholden to the political establishment?

Sorry, but I don't see anything to disqualify RT as a news source, as long as it is taken with the appropriate salt (and of course, news should always be gathered from many diverse sources).

I like several, but every source is biased in some ways: The Guardian, Haaretz, Al Jazeera, RT, Der Spiegel, and South China Times.

I judge on which US centric stories are covered and generally agree with other international sources. I find MSNBC, CNN, and Fox to be generally bad because of two reasons: they seem to be bad at walking back stories that they get wrong, and they seem to simply not cover some important topics.

I like the BBC. As an American I can read their articles (same language), and while they do have some aligned interests, they have fewer hard dependencies on certain US outcomes from their reporting. Not perfect of course, but may provide a more rounded perspective. I’ve also seen good reporting from Indian and Canadian outlets but I can’t remember them by name off hand.

I like Reuters. I'm not sure how unbiased they are on UK news, but for US and global news they seem fairly straight.

France 24 English is pretty good.

I watch it on YouTube, it seems very balanced compared to American outrage porn

dw.com might be an interesting source for english speakers interested in international news from a German POV. Basically party of our public broadcasting infrastructure targeted at international readers.

https://restofworld.org/

> Rest of World is an international nonprofit journalism organization. We document what happens when technology, culture and the human experience collide, in places that are typically overlooked and underestimated. We believe the story about technology is as big as the world that’s using it, and that everyone — from those building technology to those using it — can benefit from a broader global perspective.

I still find the economist good. Its not cheap, but it always had interesting take on news from around the world.

For TV news I've started to stream DW (German) and France24 for europe in the background sometimes. Oddly they're in english. They're not supper hard hitting (I'm not sure if they're government sponsored or where they come from) but you get different stories and a different perspective and lately lots of spanish island volcano footage.

They have youtube streams.

dw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCknLrEdhRCp1aegoMqRaCZg

france24 https://www.youtube.com/c/FRANCE24English

The Economist has been caught many times for flawed bias. It is a mouthpiece of the national security state.

Just look at how they called the US orchestrated coup d'etat of the majority vote winning non-white indigenous Evo Morales in Bolivia, replacing him with a white supremacist minority party of 5% votes, saying that he fled the country! Almost all the other western publications produced the same fake news initially.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/18/silenc...

Your comment reminded me of this article in the Prospect Magazine: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/what-the-economi...

"The Economist was founded by the liberal Scottish banker James Wilson as a mouthpiece of the movement for free trade. This was originally a broad church stretching from radicals like Richard Cobden and John Bright to the cotton interests of Manchester. But that coalition frayed as Wilson opposed assistance to Ireland during the famine and backed the authoritarian usurper Napoleon III following the 1848 revolution in France. By the 1850s, Wilson was doing battle with his erstwhile friends over his support for a war against Russia in the Crimea. This started a tradition. As one outspoken foreign editor remarked at his retirement from the newspaper, the Economist has yet to see a war it does not like. Again and again, spreading and defending the benefits of western liberalism has offered justification for imperial adventure."

I met a number of their journalists over the years including a professor who had wrote for them at one point (he was an Oxford PPE graduate although I am not sure if it was Magdalen college) and saw how the sausage was made first hand and how selective they were with the truth if it didn't fit their narrative. But that it is the case with all media. Read lots from different sources (e.g. western and non-western sources) and never forget the Gell-Man amnesia effect (pun not intended).

Thanks everyone for the comments. I always try to read with a little skepticism and I've always found their perspective.. a bit different. But I'll be more cautious now. For me it was covering things you don't see at all in the US papers.

I had to look up the "gell-man amnesia effect):

https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2021/01/18/gell-mann-amnesia/

Naming is clearly a form of branding. Thanks for that link at the bottom. There is a gem there on why Michael Crichton called it the Gell-Mann amnesia effect:

By the way, why is the effect named after the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann? Crichton explained

I refer to it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have.

It reminds me of why von Neumann told Shannon to call it entropy:

When Shannon first derived his famous formula for information, he asked von Neumann what he should call it and von Neumann replied “You should call it entropy for two reasons: first because that is what the formula is in statistical mechanises but second and more important, as nobody knows what entropy is, whenever you use the term you will always be at an advantage!

http://www.spatialcomplexity.info/what-von-neumann-said-to-s...

0. The Diplomat (International analysis)

1. DW News (German perspective)

2. BBC (British perspective)

3. Sky News (British perspective)

4. Al Jazeera English (Middle-eastern perspective)

5. WION (Indian perspective)

6. Dawn (Pakistani perspective)

7. The Print (Indian perspective)

Important to keep in mind that Al Jazeera is not representative of the Middle East. While they have some of the most detailed coverage of the Middle East, it is from a Qatari bias. It's not representative and sometimes in contrast with other Middle Eastern adjacent states like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

BBC News is approximately the British government's perspective. There is constant pressure on them to not upset the government, lest their funding be cut, and it shows in their reporting. It's only reliable for issues for which the British government could have no possible interest, basically countries outside of UK, Europe and US.

BBC is not reliable as a news source for all countries where the British government is involved in.

Example is the fake staged news on Douma Syria chemical attack which they eventually walked back on.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9958679/BBC-admits-...

https://www.manilatimes.net/2021/09/19/opinion/columns/bbc-a...

There are so many numerous more including WMDs in Iraq, Libya bombing pretext etc.

All news is a mouthpiece of their owners, sponsors or those that grant "access" and privilege to. Read from as many diverse sources as possible and never forget the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect (pun not intended).

South China Morning Post https://www.scmp.com Relatively objective coverage of China

Used to be. Owned by Alibaba Group since 2015 so YMMV.

It all depends on what you want. Do want a West-centric news aggregate? Do you want as wide a set of views as possible? Do you want Asian-centric news? Do you want Tech-centric news?

My set of news websites is designed to give as wide a set of news sources as possible. So you will West-centric, China-centric, Russia-centric, Asian-centric websites in my list.

By having a very-wide set of sources, many of the biases (and ALL news sources are biased) will tend to cancel out. You will often find that news-sources omit stuff that isn't flattering to the local powers, so you won't see that news there, you will find it in one of the other sources instead.

The Guardian (Britain) https://theguardian.com/

Russia Today https://www.rt.com/

ABC News (Australia) https://www.abc.net.au/news/

Global Times (China) https://www.globaltimes.cn/

Press TV (Iran) https://www.presstv.ir/

BBC News (Britain) https://www.bbc.com/news/

Some websites I refuse to use are the Rupert Murdoch ones (Fox News, Wall Street Journal, Sky News, news.com.au, etc. from US, Britain, Australia.) These are generally unreliable and have been the focus of a court ruling which states "because they are classed as 'entertainment' and not 'news, they have no obligation to be truthful" - Florida ruling, early 1990s

CBC - Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada is America's biggest trading partner so we keep a close eye on the States and what is happen there and how it will effect us.

In northern border cities in the US, you can get CBC on terrestrial AM and FM, with zero advertisements or donation solicitations. It's pretty great.

I tend to check out the BBC and Al Jazeera English. I'm usually looking for "Just the facts, ma'am." reporting and often find it there before other sources.

I have Feedly set up to use a lot of the suggestions others have said so far. One that I haven't seen yet is CBC (Canadaian Broadcasting Corporation). I have been very happy with the neutrality of most of their articles. I also use ABC for Australia, though they are less neutral.

https://www.theguardian.com/ is free to read and excellent if, euro centred news.

The news coverage is decent but the opinion columns are deranged. A bit like the Wall Street Journal in that regard.

Discussion 1 month ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28565045

I really like The Irish Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, The New Statesman, The Diplomat, Project Syndicate, and occasionally The South China Morning Post.

I like: Guardian, Le Monde, Dawn, India Today, Sydney Morning Herald, The Mainichi... there are loads really ;)

The. Economist.

Yes, the Economist and the Financial Times are in my eyes the most impartial of all mainstream media.

I don't care for gossip, VIP news, the latest murder and what that politician said yesterday. It's too overwhelming and noticeably lowers my quality of life (I'm trying to quit reading The Guardian, it's worse than social media for my mental health). I just want a big picture overview of what's going on in the world, often described from the cold and less emotional point of view of economics and markets.

I've been wanting to buy an Economist subscription, but recently I've been able to read multiple articles daily without encountering a single paywall.

besides other suggestions in this thread, have you checked out VOA? from America to the world?

UKColumn.org

RT.com

AlJazeera.com

France24.com

GBNews.uk

Skynews.com.au

Australia

https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/

Austria

https://www.eurozine.com/

Belgium