From where I'm standing NPR and NYT feel as close to corrupt & deceitful as right wing media lately. "Advocacy journalism" is a contradiction in terms. And the Trusted News Initiative is basically a license to lie (well-intentioned or not, that's NOT what journalism is or needs to be).
Semafor and Compact are worth a read. I'm still investigating News Nation but it doesn't seem to suck the corporate/pharma/CIA teet as bad as its ilk. Mainly, I've come to believe it's independent journalists ftw:
Attkisson, O'Keefe, Taibbi, Greenwald, Shellenberger, Weiss, and Demasi, to name a few. (Michael Shellenberger's take on the tariff situation is brilliant, IMO)
I am currently investigating these online media sources but thus far have found them to be as close to neutral as anything out there. Since finding them I can barely stand to read anything else (though I do keep up with mainstream media, including NPR and NYT, just to keep an eye on the corporate/Big Pharma agenda they're still trying to feed us)
I’ve been paying very close attention to the changes and more obvious bias in NYT and NPR. I also work to cultivate awareness around how my own leanings make it more difficult to catch these changes as they are preaching to the choir. Except I’m no longer really in the choir. Which is why I started amassing substacks that at least held the promise of broader and also more nuanced takes. Thanks for the offerings. I can’t believe I forgot about Christian Science Monitor. I used to write for them long ago and when I first found out about that publication with its oxymoronic name, I was surprised to learn the history of it, and how it has always been a revered news source. Gonna bookmark it.
I suggest a different path. My thinking is as follows. All media outlets have moved from an advertising based revenue model to a subscription based model. This means that it is more important to deliver reassurance to one's readership than accurate information. This implies one should consider an outlet's readerships desires. What I have found is that media sources that have a readership that wants to make money from the correct analysis of reality, provide more accurate information. The opinion pieces could still be wacky, but if one wants mostly accurate information, I would suggest Bloomberg News and the Wall Street Journal - and that is it. Everything else is "like your opinion, man".
“Like your opinion, man.” Hahaha. Even with all my left leaning hippy shit, I have noticed some things at NYT and NPR that I can clearly see as bias leaking into what is supposed to be reporting. At this point I am done with most op-ed pieces because they seem to not accomplish anything. ALTHOUGH for sport, if I want to observe human psychology up close (virtually), I have a field day reading NYT comments section on op-ed pieces (and yes I also post comments). I find this oftentimes educational. I might even find my mind changing, or at least my perspective broadening as commenters “show the math” in how they reach certain conclusions. I also think it helps that NYT comments section is heavily moderated so if you want to tell another commenter to fuck off, you have to be a bit clever about it. I’m pretty sure no comment I have ever submitted in response to a Ross Douthat has ever been published because all I ever want to do is to very clearly and concisely tell him to fuck off.
I wouldn't suggest WSJ Editorial -- only core WSJ. Core WSJ is more balanced, but the editorial/opinion section is obviously massively biased and I sometimes post there occasionally as a staunch independent, but it's generally become very hostile to reasonable fact-based discussion. That said, it's funny watching the traditional R's turn on Trump when he's unfavorably impacting THEIR bottom line as he drives us off the cliff in full Thelma/Louise mode. The news today is so depressing, but ignoring it is worse if we intend to fight this budding autocratic oligarchy. The mass protests have been empowering and energizing though.
I'm semi-retiring soon and will be deep diving into this awesome community to improve my information curation/gardening. I also plan to dive into Spike's rich content trove. I went to college in Dallas in late 80's and friggin LOVED driving down to Austin to hit the bars on 6th street (where I became a devout Stevie Ray Vaughn fanatic). Consider me an official subscriber -- and many thanks. And glad that my NYT comments perusal led me back to Spike. "Chapeau" to you Spike! ;-)
Thank you so much for including me in your round up. I am honored, and slightly embarrassed, to be included as I feel that what I have to share here on SubStack egregiously underwhelms compared to the astounding essays and stories from the others in your list.
As for email inboxes swollen with newsletters: The stress is real! Early on I turned off email notifications for all Substacks I follow. Even before I followed a lot of current events SubStacks, I felt overwhelmed by the number of emails SubStack generates. I really like opening up SubStack, which I do several times a day, and discovering new posts from my favorite SubStackers almost like I'm reading a newspaper. It's all weird psychology, but somehow I feel less pressure with this set up than I do with all those newsletters staring at me from my inbox. LOL.
I'm looking forward to the new Monday afternoon WWS experiment! Thanks for all you do.
Not blowing smoke here—every single one of your offerings thrills me. I am so glad you publish it and also share it in workshops. Thank you for that. And even before all these substack subscriptions started filling my inbox I already had an OCD-related issue. Like it’s impossible for you to lie, it is pretty impossible for me to go to bed at night if there are more than ten emails in my inbox. That’s admittedly crazy and it’s impossible to keep it at ten or under and yet I keep trying.
Thanks for the shout out, Spike! 🙌 Looking forward to digging into some of your other recommendations, too! The collection of diary entries from settlers sounds like a fascinating read, too.
Thank you so much for including my Substack! I really appreciate you and this Substack. I've paused for a bit while I finish my novel and recalibrate from election/hellscape, BUT the novel after this will include a convalescent hospital/school for nervous young women that this family really did run
Spike! Thank you for the kind words and for sharing my Substack with your frens. I feel the same, about deepening our friendship here. I'm excited to check out your other recommendations too. Love me some KV.
Oh, we of the early morning animal chores (lovingly and gratefully) performed before our own eyes are open.
GIRL! Lady! Woman! Mama! I am right write with you! Your Stack is my top 5! No brown noses involved.
The almost weekly reboot might work for me, except I often ignore it for a month and then try to dive in.
I am super stoked to see this list and your recommendations; definitely something that would come up at a languorous ladies luncheon in 2025 of one of those ever even existed. At least that is what I recreate in my mind when I rope off 8 hours of my scheduled week to exclusively write, read, create, play in the dirt, photograph, reconnect with my homegirls and play…..
And of course simply pet the dogs. 😉
Oh, Uncle Spike how our words as women and a great deal of other gender identifiers are needed NOW; almost like we too are in that unthinkable journey to the shores that are rising, and the planet that is cooking of the killing of our waters and the dashing of our reality as we witness Man’s Inhumanity to Man. 🧠🤢
Michelle! Good morning! Thank you for this. I really do take so much comfort in my lady friends, our shared stories, our validation of one another. So glad we found each other. ♥️
Spike, delighted by the signal boosting of, like you said, what nurtures us, a thoughtful balm for these times.
Prior to ducking in here and engaging with others largely via notes, a few direct messages, I logged films, posted reviews and enjoyed the discourse on Letterboxd. Only recently have I felt like watching movies again what with the burgeoning autocracy, anxiety about extrajudicial deportation of our citizens, post-tariff economic precarity, etc. In total it assumes unbidden space and quenches, meaning extinguishes, the spirit.
From your own notes, dispatches and shared photos, it is apparent how, just like on here, you have cultivated a community you care about, enjoy spending time with and instilling those shared connections with joy and reverence (vintage New Wave apparel, farm life, ministerial post and all).
Thanks for sharing your list of favorites. Outside or sometimes adjacent to, depending on the author, I am enjoying writer/educator-activist/ music lover Danyel Smith's publication as well as artist Wendy MacNaughton's and an ex-film marketer turned writer named Sophie who publishes "The Final Scene."
You probably already know this but Kathleen Hanna recently joined the community, too!
More women who create, educate and inspire us to lift up others with their art, please 💛
Hi Jennifer. These are all great recommendations! Thank you so much. I like to think I have always valued community—I mean that I have always been aware of it. But I also think that now more than ever I am really taking time to appreciate with wonder how lucky I am to have such a strong group of folks in real life and online. I think sometimes the whole gratitude thing comes across as corny, but I can’t think of another way to best describe how I feel: grateful.
From where I'm standing NPR and NYT feel as close to corrupt & deceitful as right wing media lately. "Advocacy journalism" is a contradiction in terms. And the Trusted News Initiative is basically a license to lie (well-intentioned or not, that's NOT what journalism is or needs to be).
Semafor and Compact are worth a read. I'm still investigating News Nation but it doesn't seem to suck the corporate/pharma/CIA teet as bad as its ilk. Mainly, I've come to believe it's independent journalists ftw:
Attkisson, O'Keefe, Taibbi, Greenwald, Shellenberger, Weiss, and Demasi, to name a few. (Michael Shellenberger's take on the tariff situation is brilliant, IMO)
I am currently investigating these online media sources but thus far have found them to be as close to neutral as anything out there. Since finding them I can barely stand to read anything else (though I do keep up with mainstream media, including NPR and NYT, just to keep an eye on the corporate/Big Pharma agenda they're still trying to feed us)
https://www.thefp.com
https://www.readtangle.com
https://ground.news
https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news
https://reason.com
https://www.csmonitor.com
I’ve been paying very close attention to the changes and more obvious bias in NYT and NPR. I also work to cultivate awareness around how my own leanings make it more difficult to catch these changes as they are preaching to the choir. Except I’m no longer really in the choir. Which is why I started amassing substacks that at least held the promise of broader and also more nuanced takes. Thanks for the offerings. I can’t believe I forgot about Christian Science Monitor. I used to write for them long ago and when I first found out about that publication with its oxymoronic name, I was surprised to learn the history of it, and how it has always been a revered news source. Gonna bookmark it.
If you haven't checked out Bridget Phetasy's Substack you should! She reminds me of you in many of the best ways
I suggest a different path. My thinking is as follows. All media outlets have moved from an advertising based revenue model to a subscription based model. This means that it is more important to deliver reassurance to one's readership than accurate information. This implies one should consider an outlet's readerships desires. What I have found is that media sources that have a readership that wants to make money from the correct analysis of reality, provide more accurate information. The opinion pieces could still be wacky, but if one wants mostly accurate information, I would suggest Bloomberg News and the Wall Street Journal - and that is it. Everything else is "like your opinion, man".
“Like your opinion, man.” Hahaha. Even with all my left leaning hippy shit, I have noticed some things at NYT and NPR that I can clearly see as bias leaking into what is supposed to be reporting. At this point I am done with most op-ed pieces because they seem to not accomplish anything. ALTHOUGH for sport, if I want to observe human psychology up close (virtually), I have a field day reading NYT comments section on op-ed pieces (and yes I also post comments). I find this oftentimes educational. I might even find my mind changing, or at least my perspective broadening as commenters “show the math” in how they reach certain conclusions. I also think it helps that NYT comments section is heavily moderated so if you want to tell another commenter to fuck off, you have to be a bit clever about it. I’m pretty sure no comment I have ever submitted in response to a Ross Douthat has ever been published because all I ever want to do is to very clearly and concisely tell him to fuck off.
I wouldn't suggest WSJ Editorial -- only core WSJ. Core WSJ is more balanced, but the editorial/opinion section is obviously massively biased and I sometimes post there occasionally as a staunch independent, but it's generally become very hostile to reasonable fact-based discussion. That said, it's funny watching the traditional R's turn on Trump when he's unfavorably impacting THEIR bottom line as he drives us off the cliff in full Thelma/Louise mode. The news today is so depressing, but ignoring it is worse if we intend to fight this budding autocratic oligarchy. The mass protests have been empowering and energizing though.
I'm semi-retiring soon and will be deep diving into this awesome community to improve my information curation/gardening. I also plan to dive into Spike's rich content trove. I went to college in Dallas in late 80's and friggin LOVED driving down to Austin to hit the bars on 6th street (where I became a devout Stevie Ray Vaughn fanatic). Consider me an official subscriber -- and many thanks. And glad that my NYT comments perusal led me back to Spike. "Chapeau" to you Spike! ;-)
Thank you for being here, thank you for subscribing and thanks for your excellent comment.
Thank you so much for including me in your round up. I am honored, and slightly embarrassed, to be included as I feel that what I have to share here on SubStack egregiously underwhelms compared to the astounding essays and stories from the others in your list.
As for email inboxes swollen with newsletters: The stress is real! Early on I turned off email notifications for all Substacks I follow. Even before I followed a lot of current events SubStacks, I felt overwhelmed by the number of emails SubStack generates. I really like opening up SubStack, which I do several times a day, and discovering new posts from my favorite SubStackers almost like I'm reading a newspaper. It's all weird psychology, but somehow I feel less pressure with this set up than I do with all those newsletters staring at me from my inbox. LOL.
I'm looking forward to the new Monday afternoon WWS experiment! Thanks for all you do.
Not blowing smoke here—every single one of your offerings thrills me. I am so glad you publish it and also share it in workshops. Thank you for that. And even before all these substack subscriptions started filling my inbox I already had an OCD-related issue. Like it’s impossible for you to lie, it is pretty impossible for me to go to bed at night if there are more than ten emails in my inbox. That’s admittedly crazy and it’s impossible to keep it at ten or under and yet I keep trying.
I LOVE your lawn mower stories! It reminds of the first time I had to use a mower. Same mistakes I made 😆 🤣
Hahaha. Talk about live and learn… I’m getting a phD from that lawnmower!
Always love making a cameo appearance on Substack. Especially in this corner of it. Hi Spike!
Hi Thomas!!
Thanks for the shout out, Spike! 🙌 Looking forward to digging into some of your other recommendations, too! The collection of diary entries from settlers sounds like a fascinating read, too.
I love your substack!
Thank you so much for including my Substack! I really appreciate you and this Substack. I've paused for a bit while I finish my novel and recalibrate from election/hellscape, BUT the novel after this will include a convalescent hospital/school for nervous young women that this family really did run
https://towens.substack.com/p/meet-the-cast-the-nutt-family
I’m so glad you’re closing in on finishing your novel! Yay!! I’ll check out the link. ♥️
Spike! Thank you for the kind words and for sharing my Substack with your frens. I feel the same, about deepening our friendship here. I'm excited to check out your other recommendations too. Love me some KV.
Thank you Krissy, for all the great food for thought! I really appreciate it. I am freaking out over KV’s memoir. It’s incredible! ♥️
Oh, we of the early morning animal chores (lovingly and gratefully) performed before our own eyes are open.
GIRL! Lady! Woman! Mama! I am right write with you! Your Stack is my top 5! No brown noses involved.
The almost weekly reboot might work for me, except I often ignore it for a month and then try to dive in.
I am super stoked to see this list and your recommendations; definitely something that would come up at a languorous ladies luncheon in 2025 of one of those ever even existed. At least that is what I recreate in my mind when I rope off 8 hours of my scheduled week to exclusively write, read, create, play in the dirt, photograph, reconnect with my homegirls and play…..
And of course simply pet the dogs. 😉
Oh, Uncle Spike how our words as women and a great deal of other gender identifiers are needed NOW; almost like we too are in that unthinkable journey to the shores that are rising, and the planet that is cooking of the killing of our waters and the dashing of our reality as we witness Man’s Inhumanity to Man. 🧠🤢
And on we go.
Huzzah.
Unstacked Restacked Misstacked.
Lovingly Stacked,
Michelle
Michelle! Good morning! Thank you for this. I really do take so much comfort in my lady friends, our shared stories, our validation of one another. So glad we found each other. ♥️
Spike, delighted by the signal boosting of, like you said, what nurtures us, a thoughtful balm for these times.
Prior to ducking in here and engaging with others largely via notes, a few direct messages, I logged films, posted reviews and enjoyed the discourse on Letterboxd. Only recently have I felt like watching movies again what with the burgeoning autocracy, anxiety about extrajudicial deportation of our citizens, post-tariff economic precarity, etc. In total it assumes unbidden space and quenches, meaning extinguishes, the spirit.
From your own notes, dispatches and shared photos, it is apparent how, just like on here, you have cultivated a community you care about, enjoy spending time with and instilling those shared connections with joy and reverence (vintage New Wave apparel, farm life, ministerial post and all).
Thanks for sharing your list of favorites. Outside or sometimes adjacent to, depending on the author, I am enjoying writer/educator-activist/ music lover Danyel Smith's publication as well as artist Wendy MacNaughton's and an ex-film marketer turned writer named Sophie who publishes "The Final Scene."
You probably already know this but Kathleen Hanna recently joined the community, too!
More women who create, educate and inspire us to lift up others with their art, please 💛
Hi Jennifer. These are all great recommendations! Thank you so much. I like to think I have always valued community—I mean that I have always been aware of it. But I also think that now more than ever I am really taking time to appreciate with wonder how lucky I am to have such a strong group of folks in real life and online. I think sometimes the whole gratitude thing comes across as corny, but I can’t think of another way to best describe how I feel: grateful.