News I Use

My first job was delivering the Fargo Forum and I have had a daily newspaper delivered most every day of my life from then until I moved to Minnesota four years ago.  We were renting a farm place out in the country beyond delivery service.  So I came to rely even more on web-sourced news.

Recent bankruptcies of major daily newspapers should surprise no one, given the troubles of mainstream media.  Plenty of people have wasted many electrons babbling on about the future of ‘news’.  Today I offer a simple annotated bibliography (linkfest) of some of my current favorite online general daily news sources.

Places I’ve lived this century:

• Bozeman (MT) Daily Chronicle.  Snapshot from the Greater Yellowstone region.
• Denver (CO) Post.  I prefered the Rocky Mountain News‘ editorial page, but I never got used to the tabloid format.  The Post is a bad habit from days gone by.  Following @denverpost on Twitter.
• Fort Collins (CO) Coloradoan. Smaller daily from up the Front Range.  I stopped reading the website when they changed to a fancy black design.  Started reading again when I found @coloradoan on Twitter.
• Headwaters News was a daily digest from the West put together by the Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana.  Many years ago I worked on a project with Larry Swanson, then director of the Center.
• Minnesota Public Radio.  One downside of my present 3-block commute is no time for NPR in the morning.  So I check out the local version online.  See what the chattering class is up to.  Following @MPR on Twitter.
• Twin Cities.com.  I checked the St. Paul Pioneer Press’ online page for news of Minnesota, because we got the STrib daily at work then but I wouldn’t look at it until lunch time.

National News

• The Economist is technically a weekly British publication but I have found more insight from their perch in London than most any publication stateside.  I got hooked in high school econ class, read it in the library in college, subscribed when I got a real job.  Then stopped my print subscription when I got a family—never enough time or money.  Still get the weekly email digest.  Haven’t found a Twitter feed yet.
• Wall Street Journal.  I subscribed to the print edition in college and when I worked in economic development.  Then, also, I moved beyond daily delivery range and subscribed online.  For awhile.  I detest paying for online content.  Hate it.  So I stopped reading WSJ.com… until now I’m being tempted by @WSJ Tweets of subscriber-restricted content.  Sigh.
• Yeah, yeah, I admit it.  Now and then I check out the Chicago Tribune, New York Times,  Washington Post, and others.  Just not regularly.  Certainly not daily.  Too much clutter.  Plus they just tick me off.  Who needs the aggravation?

Blogosphere

• Planetizen and the blogs are usually on my noon-time schedule, catch as catch can.  Planetizen is a good national aggregation of planning and development headlines & commentary, often with a skeptical (even contrary) perspective.

There are also several other amusing political & scouting blogs I haunt, just not on a daily basis.  Many of the blogs—policy and technology in particular—are too flashy and annoying to bother with.  I don’t hang out on TV media sites much either (e.g. FoxNews, MSNBC, CNN).  Call me old fashioned but I’m not into video.  Heck, I hardly do podcasts. I was stuck on dial-up at home at the time anyway.

There are several other news sources that might seem obvious that I either a) tried and gave up on, b) tried and never got around to bookmarking, c) tried and was quickly bored silly, or d) haven’t found and dismissed yet.