Google News, but more text and less clickbait

January 1, 2017 6:25 PM

Help me find a replacement for Google News. Up until a year ago, I turned to Google News to satisfy my daily intake, but in recent months it seems more clickbaity and with more sources that are dubious or anathema to me (eg Fox, buzzfeed). Apps, websites are both ok.

What I would like:
- heavy on text
- sources either well selected for the user, or manually tunable to eliminate dreck
- little to no clickbait
- aggregates multiple sources
- free to $10/mo

What I've tried
- apple news app - too visual
- BBC - good perspective on real news but too much clickbait, not an aggregator
- Google news circa 2009, even more text dense, perfect
- NYTimes.com - great perspective, long form analyses, lack of clickbait, but not an aggregator

Is there anything like Google News, but more up my alley? Like if the NYTimes did the layout and source selection?

posted by zippy to Media & Arts (7 answers total)

Have you tried the Yahoo News app? It's not perfect, but it's free, and on the whole, I've been rather pleased with it.
posted by umwhat at 8:40 PM on January 1, 2017

NPR.org offers a text version that lets you go to the news topic only. It's not an aggregator but zero clickbait as best I can tell.
posted by Bella Donna at 8:59 PM on January 1, 2017

Another option: the Google News page has a "Personalize" button on the top right. With it, you can adjust the frequency of which news sources it brings up from "rarely" to "often".
posted by ShooBoo at 10:36 PM on January 1, 2017 [4 favorites]

A combination of an RSS reader + carefully curated news sources?

For the RSS reader, I like Feedly, which has a freemium model, but the free version is perfectly usable and not limited in size. It can be configured to be text heavy rather than "magazine-like". You might also want to try Newsblur.
posted by snakeling at 12:28 AM on January 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I've found the personalized Google news to work pretty well for me. I've knocked out most of the sites I can't abide, save for a couple just to see how they spin the big news headlines, and then added listings for all the secondary news items I want to see, like archeology, space, global economy, tech, and so on. I don't see much clickbait, though still a couple sites crop up occasionally I haven't gotten around to addressing yet, and the different sections make it more enjoyable to browse for things I actually care about.
posted by gusottertrout at 2:40 AM on January 2, 2017

You need to do it yourself. Go the RSS reader route, per snakeling.

Recognize sources that deliver original material versus sources that riff off that original material. E.g., why read a dozen sources that rehash the same Reuter or AP story when you can add RSS feeds from both those sources?

Edit your sources list ruthlessly. I'll add a new source on the strength of a single strong story but they're gone in a few days if they don't keep up.
posted by justcorbly at 4:26 AM on January 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

I've been using ighome.com as a replacement for (was it iGoogle?) for years. Add your own feeds, so I have NPR, NYT, some weather sources, etc.
posted by getawaysticks at 6:06 AM on January 3, 2017