I try to keep up with current events, but the way most people do it is just plain wrong.
Why You’re Reading the News Wrong
Here is a nice table of why most people read the news wrong:
| What people do | Why it is wrong |
| Get their news from social media. | It is biased by algorithms. |
| Read just one news site. | Also biased. |
| Watch cable news. | Eww. |
How I Read the News
First, I run a computer program on my server called FreshRSS that automatically fetches the news. FreshRSS uses RSS feeds, a kind of machine readable list of articles which most news sites have. For sites that do not have an RSS feed I program XPath rules to automatically detect articles. All of these articles are automatically put into a list. I try to pick a variety of news sources so that I have a relatively well-rounded set of opinions to read on every topic. This eliminates a lot of the bias in the news.
For reading on my phone I use an app called NetNewsWire that connects to FreshRSS and downloads the articles. NetNewsWire also has a nice reader view that looks pretty good.
For reading on my Laptop, I just use the FreshRSS dashboard. I also use Firefox with the NoScript extension to get rid of all the pesky annoyances that most news websites have.
Additionally, I also read the front page of several news websites and listen to a few news podcasts. This is how I get a well rounded account of current events.
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