A better newspaper?
August 3, 2011 7:03 AM   Subscribe

What is the best way to get informed on the top news stories once a day, besides reading a physical newspaper?

I'm thinking some kind of digest that includes brief summaries and not just headlines, and that would be available through RSS or email. Even better would be if headline sports and entertainment was included.

Actual newspaper websites aren't very good because you have to click through to a dozens of articles via unclear headlines just to get basic details, and they seem to have a lot of repeated articles across days.
posted by smackfu to Technology (14 answers total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
google news has an RSS feed. other than that, any of the wire RSS feeds like reuters or the associated press.

i use feedly which uses my google reader rss to get my news so i can customize which sites i get news from. having said that, most top stories i find are covered by google news.
posted by nadawi at 7:09 AM on August 3, 2011


Response by poster: To clarify, when I said RSS, I meant an RSS of a daily digest, not individual items.
posted by smackfu at 7:14 AM on August 3, 2011


Do you mean something like this? The Journal does 9 news stories at 9 am (local time) that are "9 things you need to know by 9 am." They also do a Daily Fix wrap-up at 9 in the evening. Ovbiously this has an Irish focus but the day's big international stories are certainly covered. There are RSS feeds for both.
posted by DarlingBri at 7:15 AM on August 3, 2011 [1 favorite]


Go read the editorial and op-ed parts of a newspaper, online if you must. Well-written pieces always give you a quick summary of the news events they're based on and some sense of the debate that surrounds them.

But as someone who works at a newspaper, I humbly suggest you occasionally buy a physical newspaper. Most of the news reporting is still done on the ground by a shrinking number of organizations, newspapers being one of them. Yes, it's purely your choice not to buy one and I understand and even share some of your reasons. But be aware that once physical newspapers are gone, many of the other sources that recycle original reporting won't have that reporting to recycle.
posted by lpsguy at 7:20 AM on August 3, 2011 [1 favorite]


First thing I thought of was Foreign Policy's Passport - they'll feature one main article each day and have links to news articles for other news. Consider it a digest of sorts, if you will.
posted by titantoppler at 7:24 AM on August 3, 2011


The Week
posted by kitkatcathy at 7:30 AM on August 3, 2011


I use Twitter.

Just start a twitter and follow all the big guys... Washington Post, New York Times, Huffington Post, Daily Beast, whatever you please really.

Generally the social media strategy of news organization skews towards an end goal of viralizing their content, driving mass amounts of traffic their way. Usually the price of admission for news sites is using Twitter. News orgs are pumping out link after link after link to all their stories, usually going along with a short blurb about the story. NYT, to date, has over 68,000 tweets. I've found it's the easiest way to stay on top of everything. Plus you can pick and choose from different topics, publications, what have you just by scanning through a continually updating list of tweets.
posted by jay.eye.elle.elle. at 7:34 AM on August 3, 2011 [1 favorite]


The NYTimes podcast puts out a decent daily podcast in which they read the headlines. Alternatively, DemocracyNow has a good semi-daily round-up of international news. There are surely many others.
posted by mateuslee at 7:44 AM on August 3, 2011


Nthing The Week. It provides an overview of important issues, and seems to give fair time to all sides of issues.

It is weekly, but there is also a website and smartphone apps.
posted by Adamsmasher at 7:44 AM on August 3, 2011


The Week - The very best of the week’s news in just one hour. It "takes the very best of the British and international news and comment, and distils it into just 35 succinct editorial pages".

Other than that, get RSS feeds of full articles and skim the list or most decent newspaper websites allow very specific custom feeds.
posted by turkeyphant at 8:38 AM on August 3, 2011


This is a little different than what you're asking for, but I listen to NPR as I get dressed in the morning and drive to work, and that seems to keep me up to date.
posted by quiet coyote at 10:39 AM on August 3, 2011 [1 favorite]


If you like the Daily Beast, you can subscribe to their "Cheat Sheet" and it gets sent to your inbox early every morning. The format is a quick headline-and-summary with a link to the longer story. Each email does this for their top 5 stories, including entertainment and (I believe) sometimes sports. Occasionally they'll send something in the middle of the day for breaking news.
posted by Beardman at 11:56 AM on August 3, 2011


Surely the problem in your question is ... what are the top stories? How do you define that?

Perhaps you should be more specific about what that means -- what does "top" mean to you? International? Politics? Finance? Sport?
posted by AmbroseChapel at 6:29 PM on August 3, 2011


The New York Times does a daily e-mail of highlights from the paper.

I also like the Slatest, another daily e-mail, from Slate magazine. Ten headlines a day on different subjects. Enough to keep you informed; not enough to distract you.
posted by vecchio at 8:22 PM on August 3, 2011


« Older I need to buy a new CPAP mask in NYC. Where?   |   Summer recipes for fresh sage Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.