News

Barber's Buzz

A great new addition to the site, Barber's Buzz, from clubmember,  local journalist and recovering Republican, David Barber.

GREAT NEW SOURCES FOR NEWS AND INFORMATION

News Sources That Just Aren’t What They Used to Be:

Radio News:

NPR is great. But it’s basically PBS. CBS Radio is still there, but you need a local CBS affiliate. Some local stations use them, but they’re like a radio wire service. Like the Associated Press for newspapers, CBS Radio provides national news stories for local radio stations to be used in radio news breaks. But their resources are primarily now put into podcasts, which we’ll get to later.

The rest? It’s talk radio. And we all know way more than we want to about talk radio.

Local TV News:

All local tv news is now owned by corporations, and corporations have agendas—profits for their shareholders, lower taxes—and narratives: Trump and Republicans are normal politicians, Democrats are actually pro-middle class. Watch our shows. Local news is good for one thing: in a crisis, like a wildfire, they are usually the first to get information out as it happens because they are usually live on the scene. But budget and staff cuts mean that is changing rapidly. TikTok was almost as good. Which app will take it’s place is yet to be seen, but you can be certain one will emerge.

KPBS is as close as you can get to what local TV news should be, but they are hobbled. There are plenty of things that happen locally that you will never see on local TV news, because the wealthy and powerful do not want you to see them, and KPBS is not in the business of devoting large financial resources to fighting lawsuits.

Cable News:

Likewise, NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC (Hello, Morning Joe), and yes, CNN are all in the same boat. They are all playing you.

Now they’re handy for basic information—election results, what’s happening in the world (to an extent), coverage of the natural disasters (LA fires), sports, weather, but TV news is very general, and does not go into great detail any more. A lot of people blame it on Reagan gutting the Fairness Doctrine, or Clinton allowing for multiple ownership rules, and certainly those contributed to the risk-averse, “less journalistic enterprise/more corporate business venture” philosophy behind television news today. But  ever since Dan Rather was fired for reporting on George W. Bush’s military service in September of 2004, the credibility of the once mighty CBS, the home of Walter Cronkite, has still not recovered. And just last week, CBS’ owners, Paramount Global, settled with Donald Trump over his objection to a standard television practice of editing interview footage.
Trump claimed it showed bias, when in fact, it didn’t. Paramount would have wiped the floor with him in court if he wasn’t in the White House, but…he was. And now CBS’ crown jewel, 60 Minutes credibility is in question because of Donald Trump’s fragile ego, and Paramount Global’s Chair, Shari Redstone, has chosen shareholder value over the integrity of one of America’s oldest broadcast institutions.

Trump sued ABC for defamation after George Stephanopoulos claimed Trump was found “liable for rape” in the E. Jean Caroll civil sexual assault case. Disney, ABC’s parent company, settled.

NBC, owned by NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast, has yet to be sued by Trump, however, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, co-hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, did go to Mar-a-Lago to try to  charm the president-elect after building a reputation as some of his biggest critics during his first administration. They immediately lost half their audience. The audience has returned since Trump took office. Trump’s magnetism persists. Trump sells.

CNN—I was aghast at CNN’s bias during the Israel/Hamas war. It was simply, absolutely, pro-Israel, and anti-Palestinian. I was aghast again during the media blitz to remove Joe Biden from his campaign. It was the lead story for two weeks. In both cases, I could not shake the impression that the powers that own CNN, Warner Brothers Discovery, had an agenda.

In short, kids…TV is there to hold your attention long enough to watch the ads.

The only thing that comes close on television is PBS…but PBS is supported mainly by donations from the wealthy, now that Musk is pulling funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. So just how much truth can they get away with telling you?

For international news, some of you might suggest BBC—and up until not too long ago, you would have been right. But for about the last twenty years, good old Beeb has become too much a tool of the Conservative government in Britain, and now, despite the election of a Labour government, is still under the influence of the wealthy.

But, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation—STILL GETS IT ALL RIGHT! TV, Radio, Print! Public International news like you wouldn’t believe! Wonderful coverage! Like a cross between the BBC and what PBS used to be! Except—almost 100% white people. And some of them French-speaking.

Also, for international news, incredible journalism from Al-Jazeera English. Very much what the BBC used to be and more—nearly zero bias except when it comes to matters of Islam, or Israel. Owned by the government of Qatar.

Newspapers.

For well over a century, the Washington Post and the New York Times were the gold standard of newspaper journalism, and certainly, the newspapers of record for the United States.

No more. History has been cast adrift for the time being.

Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.  the notorious nepo-baby publisher of the New York Times, who inherited the legendary Gray Lady, HATES Joe Biden because Biden refuses to be interviewed by the paper, and led the charge to get him out of the election, as did most major media companies. Why? Between that and their one-sided (the Israeli side) coverage of what’s happening in Gaza, their objectivity is in question.

And now, with owner Jeff Bezos forbiddance (yes, it’s a legitimate word, I looked it up)  of the Washington Post’s Editorial Staff from endorsing Kamala Harris’ candidacy, and the LA Times’ billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Siong forbidding his editorial staff from doing the same, their previously unquestionable objectivity has become, well, questionable.

Doug Manchester, former owner of the San Diego Union Tribune, has a gold statue of Donald Trump in his front yard. Think you can trust him?

And the New York Post, once the National Enquirer of New York City, is mistaken for legitimate by conservatives across America. Just like Donald Trump! Oh my.

Magazines

Time and Newsweek, once the weekly standards of in-depth journalism, have become biased, lazy, barely-read rags and websites followed by uncommitted conservatives, which is why I’m only devoting a single sentence to them.

Life Magazine has vanished. BUT GO TO WWW.LIFE.COM!

Sadly, Rolling Stone hasn’t vanished, but likewise, go to www.Rollingstone.com

And even though it has nothing to do with politics, you can STILL subscribe to the print version of National Geographic!

Social Media

There used to be Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. And then we all spent years and years donating our time and our attention to Mark Zuckerberg. So he came up with an algorithm to get more of it and started selling advertising. We all helped build a monster while the world suffered. They discovered they could manipulate our thoughts and feelings. Elon Musk wanted some of that, on steroids, so he bought Twitter. That sucked in the truly weak-minded, while the rest of us left.

And here we are.

Honestly, if you’re still on any of these platforms, you’re only making these monsters richer and more powerful. You should delete your accounts. You’re contributing. Besides, there’s better stuff out there. Stuff without algorithms and bots designed to make you argue and angry.
I’ll tell you about them in a second

Podcasts to Avoid:
Joe Rogan
Shawn Ryan
Charlie Kirk
Ben Shapiro
Tucker Carlson
Bannon’s War Room
The Dan Bongino Show
The Matt Walsh Show
The Morning Wire
Glenn Beck
Michael Knowles
Mark Levin
Savage Nation with Michael Savage
The Dinesh D’Souza Podcast
Newt Gingrich

So, quick recap of the fading glory of previous journalistic bulwarks—
All of these media were on their way out already, but after they way newspapers, network television, and especially cable television news showed their biases during the election, consumers have really turned their backs on them. Circulation and ratings have tanked. WaPo subscriptions have dropped from 2.5 million to 2.2 million just last month. CNN and MSNBC’s viewers have dropped by half since before the election. CNN just fired 200 staff from TV and hired 200 for the web. Fox News viewership is up 31% in the same period. But we all know that Republicans don’t care about accurate information.

Facebook users have dropped by a third since 2023. But that’s from three billion daily users to two billion. So Zuck isn’t hurting for money or power.

Between 2022 and 2024, X, or Twitter, lost 10% of it’s users, 20% in the US.


Biased, untrustworthy newspaper sources:

Washington Post
LA Times
New York Times
New York Post
The Wall Street Journal
The Economist
Chicago Tribune
The Baltimore Sun
The Mercury News
Escondido Times Advocate

Social Media to Avoid:
X (twitter), Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Threads

And Now, the Good Stuff:

While I can’t speak to the print versions, there are a TON of newspapers still out there, they’re just online. Some are free, some require a subscription.
-The Tennessee Holler: https://tnholler.com/ founded in 2019 by Justin Kanew, progressive news
-The Texas Tribune https://www.texastribune.org   (Not owned, governed by a board of volunteers founded in 2008, funded by donations and subscriptions)
-San Francisco Chronicle https://www.sfchronicle.com/  (owned by Hearst Media since 2000)
-The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/us   (Based in Britain, supported by donations, owned by The Scott Trust since 1907)
-Monocle- https://monocle.com Another British publication, but it does a great job of covering the world, in print magazine, and in radio. They call it “Affairs.” You can listen here: https://monocle.com/all/affairs/ they broadcast nonstop, but their online archive goes back to 2007.
-AP: https://apnews.com/  The good old Associated Press. The service that all the services depend on. Subscribe for free. Bear in mind, all the corporate sources pay the Associated Press, so they are somewhat at their mercy. They won’t do a lot of confrontational journalism, but they will get facts, and they are everywhere.
-Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/ The British version of AP. Owned by Thompson Reuters. Founded in 1851. British Institution. Paid subscription.
-NPR/PBS: https://www.npr.org You know what this is, but again, it operates at the pleasure of the wealthy due to their generous tax shelter status.
-ProPublica: https://www.propublica.org/  The best thing to come to journalism in a long, long time. Read it. Send them money. These people preach the pure Journalistic Gospel. They do the digging, and they reveal the truth.
-States Newsroom: https://statesnewsroom.com/  Very much like ProPublica, only at a state level. Great journalists from around the country, reporting on important news across the states. Really good coverage on my home state of Kansas. Wish they had more regional coverage around here.
-Democracy Docket: Democracy Docket incredible legal news from around the country.
-The Week: The Week is a compendium from 200 different trusted and vetted publications every week since 1995, and comes in print, online, email newsletter, and app editions.
-Google: Look it up yourself! So many people forget about this. We all have the ability to look things up for ourselves!
and if you're really not into having your information sold, tracked, and stored, try Duck Duck Go: https://duckduckgo.com I've been using it, and you won't notice the difference. No more Google on my devices!

Social Media:

-Reddit https://www.reddit.com 

-BlueSky https://bsky.app/

-Substack https://substack.com/

Writers to follow on Substack:
-Robert Reich
-Doug Porter
-Heather Cox Richardson
-Jeff Tiedrich (careful with this one)
-Dr. Nancy Pearson
-Arturo Dominguez
-Kristofer Goldsmith
-Elad Nehorai
-Jack Hopkins
-Ken Klippenstein
-Mehdi Hasan

Podcasts:
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The New Yorker Political Scene
On The Media
Gaslit Nation
KQED’s Forum
Stay Tuned with Preet
This American Life
The Ezra Klein Show
The Monacle Daily
The Globalist

In short, if it's run by a corporation, line your cat box with it.

Otherwise: explore it. If it’s good, and I haven’t mentioned it, share it with me at escondidodems@gmail.com , and I’ll add it to this list!