As in, a way to keep up with stuff that is relevant in the long term, like wars, while discarding flavor-of-the-week scandals and such. Any periodic retrospectives you follow, stuff like that?
Perhaps it's better to just not keep up with the news too much. From what I understand the world is safer today than it has ever been, especially in the Western world. And most news is bad news anyway - you won't feel much happier knowing about it.<p>Maybe it's better to focus on what's important and what you have some influence over, like the well-being of your family and friends, self improvement and your future goals.
Tomorrow we launch <a href="https://grasswire.com" rel="nofollow">https://grasswire.com</a> to the public. It's in private beta now, but it's a newsroom for the internet. Basically a hacker news full of news junkies and reporters. They ruthlessly curate and fact check the world's most important news.<p>The end result is a daily (or weekly) email that gets sent out. It's digestible in thirty seconds, contains only important news, and has been fact checked by thousands of people to ensure accuracy. No agenda, no celebrity gossip, just facts and sources.<p>I would be honored if you would check it out.
News is an entertainment show. News editors edit actual events into an engaging narrative in the same way that reality TV shows edit the events that occur in their show's domain into a narrative. There is plenty of raw material to work with. On any given day there are wars, injustices, political in-fighting, dishonest or fraudulent behaviour, and amusing stories about dogs on skateboards (or whatever). They're just editing it together.<p>Those in positions of power are so good at manipulating the news agenda too. Everyone from the government to the British Royal Family to Beyoncé to ISIS are at it; essentially pitching stories to news editors in the hope they get picked up.<p>Personally, I try to avoid it. I find news uses fear and outrage too much as a way to keep you watching, and it engenders a sense of hopelessness. Come election time I do some research and vote accordingly, the rest of the time I avoid it.
You should really ask yourself if you need to. If you're middle class, have a highly skilled job that pays enough money and live in a major city (and you have settled there) in a peaceful western country then it genuinely is a waste of time to listen to the news as it has zero effect on you.<p>But to answer your direct question I listen to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 (6-9am). The reporting is as terrible as any other major news network but has just enough info to keep you in touch with what is happening so you don't feel lost in conversations at the pub.
I read IRIN, Trust.org, and reliefweb.<p><a href="http://irinnews.org/" rel="nofollow">http://irinnews.org/</a><p><a href="http://www.trust.org/humanitarian/" rel="nofollow">http://www.trust.org/humanitarian/</a><p><a href="http://reliefweb.int/" rel="nofollow">http://reliefweb.int/</a><p>Edit: curious that this got downvoted so rapidly when OP specifically mentions wanting to keep track of things like wars, which these sites all cover, while discarding flavor-of-the-week scandals, which again these sites avoid.
For anybody who reads French, I recommend <a href="http://www.courrierinternational.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.courrierinternational.com/</a>. They select and translate articles from the world press on whatever are the most important issues. So you'll get Greek discussions of Syriza, Ukrainian and Russian comment on Donbass, etc.<p>I've not found anything as good in English, but presumably it's out there somewhere.<p>Otherwise, I find it useful to read through archives. The Guardian does a good job of tagging everything. The New York Times is good for world news by country -- e.g. if you want to know what's been going on in Poland lately, start at <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/poland/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesan...</a><p>Also, Spiegel Online put up some of their best articles in English, though they can be frustratingly pompous and long-winded.
Check out the "In the News" column on the home page of Wikipedia: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page</a><p>For a few pages of quick summaries of all the big political, international, and business news, check out the opening pages of <i>The Economist</i>.
Do you remember any significant news one year ago today?<p>That's why I ignore the general news. Long-form journalism on the other hand is what I read.
Old fashioned, I know, but I listen to the radio. I often have BBC Radio 4 on in the background, where I can catch the hourly news. Then there' she excellent Today program in the morning and PM in the afternoon.
I subscribe to NextDraft, which sends me a daily email with top stories. One of the few newsletters I enjoy.<p><a href="http://nextdraft.com/" rel="nofollow">http://nextdraft.com/</a>
I don't. There are a handful of sites I follow via RSS and I get any really important new through them. I think what you'll find though is that most news isn't relevant to you (including HN) and that you can both be less anxious and have more time to focus on whatever is important to you if you miss it. Just try delaying news consumption by a week to see what I mean. Most of it will seem irrelevant a week later.<p>Since I saw you mentioned wanting to be able to talk about whatever other people are bringing up in conversation or just having a basic awareness of what's going on in the world, you might want to try thebrowser.com. It usually links to a handful of high quality articles each day about topics related to what's going on in the world.
Reddit — subscribed /r/news and /r/worldnews. It's terrible for the comments, but the pressing issues will tend to float to the top. Also, if anything <i>really</i> bad happens, I usually see it on Facebook, MetaFilter, or even HN.
I have subscribed to Guardian Weekly, it's... OK. I get easily irritated by incompetent reporters so the fact that I don't regret getting the subscription says a lot of good things about the general quality of the Guardian. As an anecdote: The coverage of a local event (Bonn, Germany) by the Guardian was OK. Not perfect, but not a complete outrage either. And that's a good thing because e.g. the local paper "Generalanzeiger" usually fumbles even the local news in a way so horrific its.... uargh.<p>I have found <a href="http://everything2.com/" rel="nofollow">http://everything2.com/</a> to be an amazing source of general thought food.
I find some of the comments on here along the lines of 'I don't bother with the news because it doesn't immediately directly affect me' to be a little worrying.<p>In an era where power is increasingly concentrated, centralized and opaque, we need responsible citizens to become <i>more</i> engaged. A prerequisite for this is that people take an active interest in what's going on in the world, even at the expense of their immediate personal interests.<p>You can't avoid politics; if you ignore it you're just deferring to other people who'll make decisions for you. Cynicism is the enemy of a decent society.
Quartz daily brief are great! <a href="http://qz.com/daily-brief/" rel="nofollow">http://qz.com/daily-brief/</a>
I got news every morning, check the headlines while on commute. News are not too much political, economical, etc, just kind of most important bits.
News about Tesla and SpaceX - check.
Google, FB and startups - check.
Some interesting bits - check.
Word in general - check, check, check.
Curated Google News, Quartz daily emails, BBC, LiveMint, The Economist. Gave up on Reddit as a news source quite a while ago. It's a cesspool.<p>For Tech News, HN has been my main source so far, but I'm adding Techmeme to the mix as well.<p>Edit: Yahoo's News Digest app is fantastic as well. Twice a day, it sends me a few top articles that are making the news. And it's beautifully designed. I highly recommend it.
The NYT sends me an email every morning of 20 or so articles from subjects that I chose, and I read two or three of them most days.<p>The Economist has the same thing, I think, but they're more expensive, and probably somewhat overlapping the NYT service.<p>And HN. In fact you could use HN as in the old saw, "If it's important, the waiter will mention it." I first heard about the black and blue dress on HN.
I listen to NPR on the commute. Since I'm focused on driving, any newsworthy event has to be mentioned a dozen times before it gets through to me. A sort of low pass filter for news.<p>I tried to follow newspapers and the Economist, but it was wasted time brushing up on trivia that doesn't affect 99% of my life (edit: and that I have no reasonable chance of changing).
I follow the RSS feed of multiple newspapers & I read my local newspaper & Newsweek in print. But to be frank news consumption is like any other form of entertainment, don't delude yourself into thinking that the time you use consuming news is time well spent.
I'm a big fan for Vox's daily news summary. They have a great way of giving relevant information in a compact format. What's nice is that they don't just post to their own site, they curate from others as well.
I read <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/top/" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/top/</a> about once or twice a month (pro-tip: avoid comment section).
Check out personalized news curated by an AI, definitely not mainstream sources.<p><a href="http://News-AI.com" rel="nofollow">http://News-AI.com</a>