feettootie:

dietraumerei:

once-a-polecat:

shadowphoenixrider:

titanoboa:

lambergeier:

as in, stop quoting the fucking daily caller, for the love of god. we are all gross liberals/progressives/socialists here, so if you see any political post on your dash that uses any news outlet in the first list as its source, then there is like an 80% chance you’re about to reblog hyperbolic conservative propaganda with very little basis in reality. don’t do it, guys. don’t do it. check sources. save a life.

WARNING: GONNA HAVE SOME CONSERVATIVE OPINIONS:

• Fox News: should be obvious. don’t do it.
• The Blaze: Glenn Beck’s personal news network. don’t do it.
• The Drudge Report: mostly link aggregation, opinions section is some bad shit. don’t do it.
  
• The Daily Caller: Tucker Carlson’s baby. you may remember Carlson as the human mouthfart that used to run Crossfire before Jon Stewart fucking eviscerated him ten years ago. don’t do it.
• Hot Air: doesn’t vote the straight conservative opinion ticket, some columnists have more liberal social views, but still. on the top 10 list of popular conservative blogs. don’t do it.
• Breitbart: conservative, neoreactionary, published an opinion this month calling for a limit to the number of women allowed into STEM fields. don’t do it.
• National Review: tbh if you gotta cite a conservative news source, go with TNR. the print magazine and policy institute especially do some high quality pieces, but like as a rule, you’re probably not gonna like the conclusions they come up with. online-only content can be a bit more opinionated. maybe do it.
• Wall Street Journal: so center-right the right has actually started to disown it. you’re not gonna like their economics, but they’re not scandal-mongering drivel like some of the blogs on this list. maybe do it.
• The Washington Examiner: very good local D.C. reporting, actually, but like, the opinions section is still not gonna be anything you wanna read. maybe do it.
• The New York Post: conservative AND a tabloid, do not look to for unbiased reporting or anything except like vile exploitation of tragedy. don’t do it.
• Any British Paper That Isn’t The Guardian or The Independent: american newspapers tend towards center-left, british papers tend towards center-right. my sympathies to our cousins across the atlantic.
• Special Mention: The Daily Mail: do not cite the Daily Mail for any goddamn reason, i will come to your house and rub your nose into your keyboard like an untrained dog.

GOOD HEARTY LIBERAL STOCK:

• The New York Times (plus Magazine): american paper of record and probably deserves it. will surely be too white elite new york liberal center-left for most of your commie asses, but still excellent.
• New Yorker: i mean it’s not breaking news and it’s frequently so pretentious you get sucked up your own ass turning the page, but they do know their investigative journalism.
• The Washington Post: on average, best political/policy reporting of any paper in the country. their wonkblog, even after Ezra Klien &co’s mass exodus, does excellent daily roundups of domestic political news.
• The LA Times (and most other city papers): LA’s great, p much everything is center-left, some of them are gonna be better at covering national issues than others (looks pointedly at SF Gate). good for local, double-check for national.
• Huffington Post: PROCEED W/ CAUTION, their news reporting is fine enough but the sheer number of bloggers attached to the site means there’s not always so much quality control. double-check that shit.
• BuzzFeed: PROCEED W/ SLIGHTLY LESS CAUTION: be on the watch for bloggers here too, but tbh their staff reporting is some real good shit. they have a white house correspondent now and everything.
• Slate: some good liberal shit.
• The Atlantic: some good liberal shit. older than you. follow ta-nehisi coates on twitter.
• NPR: some generally decent liberal shit. please donate to them.
• Politico: some good liberal shit.
• Mother Jones: some good liberal shit. older than you.
• The Guardian: actually does some great US reporting, had reporters in Ferguson last summer.
• Al Jazeera: also has an american bureau, good stuff, and, of course, international coverage unlike almost anything in the US.
• BBC: doesn’t care as much about the US, but more foreign policy coverage worth reading.
• Vox: where Ezra Klien and his crew all ran off to. unfortunate tendency for clickbait headlines, but their explainer cards do an excellent job of breaking complex news stories into easily digestible parts. i’m biased, but i love them.

SORTA INBETWEEN, THIS IS A SLIDING SCALE AFTER ALL (look, a graph):

• The Economist: technically has a majority center-left readership, but you’re not gonna like their economics. they love themselves some free markets.
• AP/Reuters: about as neutral as it possibly gets. all facts, no opinion. (pronounced roi-terz btw, impress your friends)
• USA Today: well i guess making every hotel guest in the country step over it on their way to breakfast qualifies it as the most popular print paper in the country.
• CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc.: all technically left of center (by maybe a milimeter), but watch out for sensationalism. they are 24-hour networks after all.
• The Daily News: i have no opinion on the daily news and i doubt any of you do either.
• TIME magazine: i mean like, not objectively unreliable, but you could be making better choices.

LITERALLY SATIRE, THESE ARE LITERALLY SATIRE:

• The National Report: it’s satire.
• The Onion: it’s satire.
• Empire News: it’s satire.

I’m so glad there’s a link to that Jon Stewart tears into Crossfire video my soul needed that

A note on the BBC: they bust their asses trying to be neutral. If you need a source with little bias, the BBC is usually a good place to go, especially if you’re a UK person. I usually use it as a barometer of ‘this is story actually a thing’.

Reblogging mostly for the comment on the Daily Mail, but also to suggest ProPublica as another good liberal source, primarily for long form reporting.

Reblogging for Good List, and to note that the Guardian has a US-specific page that’s pretty good.

Oh, and never, ever, ever read The Sun. Ever. Fuck the Sun.

(Justice for the 96!)

Thanks for this, I need guidance

Great list! just gotta add that The Borowitz Report is another (extremely long-running) satire column that I often see people mistaking for actual news.