Read Smarter, Not Louder: Avoiding One-Sided News Feeds
The Best Tools for Unbiased News Consumption
With the constant stream of news over the past few weeks, it has become increasingly difficult to discern what is actually happening. To cope, many of us categorize people as "good guys" or "villains" and return to the same handful of sources that align with our views. I’m just as guilty of this as anyone else.
This isn't a political newsletter, so I won’t share my opinions on the current administration versus the previous one. However, I will share something a political science professor once told me in college: never assume the other side has bad intentions. That advice has helped me maintain a clearer perspective over the years. Misguided? Idiotic? Even dangerous? Perhaps. But evil? Probably not.
Even if you don’t see them as evil, you might still think that people on the other side are either elitists or uninformed. But I promise, when you engage with their best arguments, your perspective will shift.
Enough preaching. Here are the best ways to consume the news without getting trapped in a one-sided echo chamber.
Apple News+
If you have an iPhone or iPad, Apple News+ is the best value for accessing diverse news sources. While the standard Apple News app provides some content, News+ unlocks full access to The Wall Street Journal and a variety of magazines, including The New Yorker, Wired, The Atlantic, Mother Jones, Bloomberg Businessweek, and National Review.
These sources offer a wide range of viewpoints, helping you stay informed without falling into ideological silos. However, major publications only tell part of the story—you'll want to look beyond them as well.
Top News Substacks
Listing every worthwhile newsletter would take all day, so here are some of my favorites with brief descriptions:
- One of the most successful Substacks out there. Consistently anti-authority, as good journalism should be. - Always insightful, Andrew Sullivan has been doing this longer than I’ve been alive. - My favorite liberal Substack. Matt Yglesias, a Vox.com co-founder, offers sharp analysis.Better Conflict Bulletin - A newsletter dedicated to understanding why polarization is increasing and how we can reverse that trend.
- A recent favorite, written by a 23-year-old from Missouri (bonus points for the home state). Well-written and thoughtful, it reminds me of the great . - Love him or hate him, Nate Silver calls balls and strikes based on what his models tell him. Sometimes he’s wrong, but typically he’s less wrong than everybody else. by - Best known for nicknaming Goldman Sachs “The Great Vampire Squid,” Taibbi left Rolling Stone when they resisted his reporting on whether "Russiagate" was overblow. He remains fiercely anti-establishment.Particle & Ground News
In college, I spent many a morning in a studio across from the Journalism school writing and editing videos for Newsy, which was eventually absorbed into Scripps News. Newsy’s mission was to aggregate multiple sources into short videos that provided a well-rounded view of the news.
It worked well, but producing news that simply confirms viewers' existing beliefs is far more profitable.
Today, Particle and Ground News carry on that mission by summarizing stories from multiple sources and ranking them by ideological lean.
Particle leans heavily on AI to determine ideological bias and summarize content, whereas Ground News takes a more traditional approach. Both apps are worth exploring if you're looking for balanced news coverage.