I've been sticking to reading https://text.npr.org/ and my local PBS/NPR-affiliate's local news coverage. Yes, both are biased and lean towards the liberal end of the news spectrum, but neither seems to push modern news shock and awe tactics nearly as evidently and I feel like I'm aware enough of what's going on locally and in the world to have decent conversations in social settings.

One nice thing about not fully comprehending what's going on in the news is that in social situations you can ask others lots of questions about current events and the people you're talking to will feel very proud that they can explain things to someone else. It's a good ice breaker, at least until it gets to be all political...