Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with reading and news

Am I being a snob?

hollypolly — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 07:04:11 -0800

My boyfriend does not keep up to date on current events. This bothers me. Can I say something? Am I being a snob? My boyfriend and I have been together for just over a year, most of which has been spent long-distance due to my research abroad. I am in my late twenties, he in his early thirties. I love this guy so much and feel very fortunate to have found him, but have been really bothered in the last few months about how little he pays attention to current events, politics, etc etc. I really enjoy reading the news, listening to pod casts, and he just doesn't seem very interested. When we first met, he seemed so passionate and opinionated about his studies and work, and so I figured this would also translate in discussing current events. Several months ago there was an election in my country (which I tend to get quite excited about and spend hours reading blogs and articles about the debates), and he had no interest in reading up on it or even voting. This completely baffled me... I then got upset and we got in a fight. I felt like such a jerk. I know I came off as condescending, and I know I hurt his feelings. I felt awful and just tried to end the discussion with "I love you so much, I guess I just have a strong desire to talk about these things and it makes me sad to know that I can't talk about them with you"

I understand that people in relationships should have different interests and hobbies and should be supportive of such interests. He has many interests that I don't share, so this should just be one those things, right? I honestly don't expect him to spend hours a day reading up on such-and-such. He is a brilliant guy, extremely confident, and I value his opinion so much, which is why I wish i could hear his thoughts on these things I suppose.

Now of course he is a very busy person. I try to always take this into consideration. He doesn't always have the time to sit and read, and often when he comes home late at night he is just too exhausted and would rather tune out to a tv show or movie. I do this a lot, too! There are days when I just don't care to read things, am so exhausted from work, so I veg out and relax. I can completely understand where he is coming from on that front, so again, maybe this is just me being snobbish?

I guess the real issue is that deep down I always envisioned my future husband/partner as someone I could turn to and discuss these things with. Don't get me wrong, I'm no expert on politics or economics or anything of the sort, but I am curious, and I feel like I'm being condescending when I ask "did you hear about...?" and he says "no". Since our fight I've stopped asking, but maybe I shouldn't?

I have always been told you can't change someone, they are who they are who they are. I blame myself for seeing this disinterest fairly early on in our relationship and choosing to ignore it. I told myself he is just really busy and doesn't have the time to read the news. I guess I like learning from my partner, I like sharing information, or coming to conclusions on things, and I feel like I can't do this with him. Since I've been away these past few months, this issue has festered a lot in my thoughts.

I know this is MY problem, not his. Please don't get me wrong. I know that this is my hang-up, my issue, and that he is just being himself and I need to either accept this or move on.

I guess my question is: Am I being too harsh in expecting my partner to take an interest in current events? I am asking him to change for my benefit, aren't I? And this is going a bit far; I should love him for who he is, and not who I want him to be, right?

Ugh, just any advice to get these thoughts out of my head, to quit being such a snob, would be very, very helpful.

Le blog est mort, vive le blog !

theodolite — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 11:43:32 -0800

I need one or many replacements for the Front Section. It's been over three months since the last update, and I've come to terms with the fact that my second favorite news/article/art/music link aggregator is dead. I doubt there's any one site that combines everything I liked about it, but I'd like to find some blogs that collect the same sorts of things.

What I liked about the Front Section:
- No breaking-news or linkbait articles that show up everywhere
- Lots of underreported international news and articles thereof that aren't necessarily from an American or European point of view
- Irreverent tone
- French-language media
- Art and particularly architecture

What I'm not looking for:
- Arts & Letters Daily (which I tried reading after TFS died. Half the articles are awful and the other half are reposted to Metafilter)
- Longform.org
- an exclusive-content site like The Awl or n+1

Metafilter seemed to like the Front Section. Hopefully someone here shares my sorrow and can tell me where to turn.

If anyone knows if Dan Casey is doing something else now, I'd like to know about that too.

Free quality content online. What should I be reading?

alexherder — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 09:13:58 -0800

Seeking suggestions for free, New York Times-quality content online. What should I be reading? This morning I went to read an op-ed in the New York Times and hit the pay wall they just recently put up. I knew it was coming and while I still may end up paying, I thought I'd use this as an opportunity to see what MeFites are reading and what you might recommend.

At the moment I'm subscribed to 56 different blogs and feeds and am always on the lookout for more good stuff to read online. Some of the blogs are about very specific topics like OMG! Ubuntu!or TECH Cocktail. Others I read because of the quality of the writing or the intellectual nature of the content like Roger Ebert's blog or LongForm.org. Of course I also subscribe to a fair amount of funny stuff like Hyperbole and a Half and XKCD. What I've found is that with all my reading is that nothing in my arsenal of blogs/sites really gives me an overall view of what's happening in the world, which is where the Times comes in.

What I love about the New York Times is the thoughtfulness and relevance of the articles and op-eds, as well as the overall quality of the writing. Unlike other news sites, they don't seem to dumb down their message. Times articles usually give me a good sense of the scope and size of the contemporary issues in the news, without making me feel like I'm reading a tabloid like USA Today or CNN.com. Of course I also like their op-ed staff but if I keep it to just op-eds I should be able to stay within their 20 articles/month maximum for free readers.

Do you have any recommendations as to news sites or newspaper sites that are as thoughtful, well-written and broad as the New York Times? I'm not necessarily tied to sites based in the US but I'd like to still have a pretty good sense of what's going on domestically. Beyond this specific question, how do you stay informed? What are you reading?

Thanks!

What is News?

sshelato — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 17:07:26 -0800

What is News? I'm looking for any books, blogs, essays, articles, etc. that relate to any intelligent definitions of news or how people believe the news in 50 years will work. I'm not interested in evaluations of bias, the demise of mainstream media, or inane ramblings about Web 2.0. It seems like, in an age when houseplants send "tweets" when they need water, there should be alternative definitions to the standard, "communicating information about current events to a mass audience."

I want to know who the Ray Kurzweil(s) of journalism are and how they think we'll get our news in the future. But I'd be delighted to read anything you think is even remotely related to this topic.

Seeking a road map to the periodical world.

RogerB — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 11:04:55 -0800

What are good resources for magazine/journal literacy, maps of the terrain of the periodical world? Is there a short, accessible guide to the Wide World of Periodicals that college students could use to get up to speed? Some short rundown of the different sorts of magazines, journals, and topics, complete with the names of the well-known ones in each niche that an educated general reader should have heard of, and would know to look at to find out what people are saying in the various realms of politics, culture, etc.? I feel sure that some smart reference librarian has written such a guide, but don't know where to find it.

Motivation: In a college class on argumentation, I have asked my students to find interesting example arguments in their general reading. But, as it turns out, they sometimes don't know where to look: their existing reading habits often don't range far beyond the NYT, WSJ, Time, Newsweek, perhaps the New Yorker, and a handful of other news outlets. In fact nearly none of them appear to know of the existence of the wide range of political magazines (The Nation or The New Republic), cultural/literary periodicals (NYRB, LRB), general-audience science and scholarly journals (Science, Nature, The American Scholar). Their information-literacy education seems to have covered how to assess the credibility of things once found, but not how to browse before finding something, nor what is out there to be browsed. I'd love to have a resource that they could use as a starting point for their exploration of the library's periodical section, since otherwise its size and unorderedness can be very intimidating.

I wanna be an ostrich.

Omnomnom — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 08:02:20 -0800

Please help me enjoy reading newspapers. Not keeping up with current events is noticably detrimental to my job. Realistically, I should be reading one or two newspapers a day and one or two magazines a week. But I've got this seemingly insurmountable block against it.

Reasons I dislike reading newspapers:

1) I always end up sad or angry or both. There's just such a lot of crap happening that I can't do anything about. Reading the morning newspaper means that I start every work day already frustrated. For instance, I've avoided reading about the BP oil disaster because I know it'll make me feel utterly furious and frustrated and helpless.

2) It's something I should be doing. When I was a kid, my mom made me eat fruit every day. Now I am an adult, I get into power struggles with my apple. It sits on my desk every day and says, "you should eat me", and I say "nu-uh, I'm not going to". I feel the same way about newspapers.

3) I'm intimidated by the backlog. There's such a lot I don't know about I don't know if I'll ever catch up.

Things that should make it easier:
1) I am a fast reader and good at making connections between random things I read.
2) There are things I enjoy reading; mostly scientific, historical, cultural stuff, IT news or social phenomena. I just really fail when it comes to political or economic news which is unfortunately what I should be reading. And to be honest, often when I make the effort to read an in depth article I do start enjoying it as long as there is some "people" aspect to it. But it's an enormous effort to force myself into starting.
3) I have a husband who loves reading the papers and is willing to discuss and answer any question. I think I like learning about things from a person much more than I do from reading an article.
4) I feel more relaxed about online news sources. They don't feel quite as threatening.
5) I have subscribed to an ok newspaper (in paper) of reasonable sophistication.

I need some help with my attitude, or maybe some workarounds about it. Is there anything I can do to stop hating newspapers so much?

I'd like to cause newspapers to lose revenuve faster...

cgomez — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:45:17 -0800

Which quality newspapers and other news services provide full-text RSS feeds? I'm looking for a world, national, and also sources specific to California news and politics. Alternatively, what are some MacGyver-style ways to make a full-text RSS feed for my current favorites? Some exemplary source I've seen are the Sacramento Bee, NY Times, and of course - Metafilter. I've found a site called Feedcry which does offer some full-text feeds for Bloomberg and the WSJ which is great. But, I'm looking for more. Thanks much.

Give me something new in the middle of the road.

Cool Papa Bell — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:27:36 -0800

I need new Web sites to replace my old ones. Here's a few things in my favorites:

CNN
MSNBC
Slate
The New York Times
Boing Boing
The L.A. Times
Salon

They all seem to take up a specific niche in my media window (general news, essays and articles).

I want to replace these sites listed above with something else. For example, is there a mainstream news site as good as CNN and MSNBC for general news? Is there a daily magazine site as good as Slate?

I'm not interested in scattershot aggregators like Digg, Reddit or Google News. Nor am I interested in axe-to-grind sites like Fox News.

Make with the suggestions.

Resources to improve diction, clarity etc for radio?

penguin pie — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 09:15:32 -0800

Reading aloud: I am training a junior news reader on a community radio station and she needs to improve her diction, clarity, pace etc. Any suggestions or online exercises/resources that will help, or is it just a matter of practice?

Stuff I've found so far is aimed at children learning to read aloud.