Fuck CNN. And, while we're at it, Fuck the BBC

[kenobi_65]

@Beckdawrek

Unless you’re desperately poor can you not pick up a newspaper?

If you want up-to-date news, or live in a smaller town: maybe not.

My elderly parents live in Green Bay, which is not a huge city (about 100,000 people). There is one daily newspaper, which is no longer printed locally (they print it in Milwaukee now), and which is “put to bed” around 5pm the day before, as it shares printing-press time with the Milwaukee paper, and several other local Wisconsin papers.

As a result, the newspaper which shows up at their house on a weekday morning has news that is at least a day old; the publisher figures that people who want breaking news don’t read the newspaper. And, it’s a very slim newspaper, without a whole lot of content anymore: most of the stories in it are short, and it’s about 3/4 ads now.

Their paper isn’t even published on Saturdays anymore, and the Sunday paper, though big, is printed on Friday night, and is thus even more out-of-date.

My parents don’t use computers anymore, so “go online” isn’t really a good option. They want to read a physical, print paper – not only because they don’t want to (and aren’t really able to) read online news sites, but because reading the actual paper has been a lifelong ritual for them.

I’ve looked into having a bigger, regional or national paper delivered to them (e.g., the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Wisconsin State Journal (Madison), the Chicago Tribune, USA Today) – that’s something you used to be able to do, but not anymore. There isn’t enough demand now to justify shipping a few copies of those papers all the way up there, and there are no local facilities for printing newspapers there anymore.

[Dewey_Finn]

@kenobi_65

And, it’s a very slim newspaper, without a whole lot of content anymore: most of the stories in it are short, and it’s about 3/4 ads now.

The New York Times is a sad, thin, narrow thing compared to what it used to be. The Sunday Times used to be a massive thing, weighing upwards of ten pounds with lots of sections and a big pile of advertising flyers.

[OldOlds]

@colinfred

Too many people welching on their end of the deal. All the people with ad blockers are making free to view impossible.

I was fine with the ads in return for content until three things started happening:

A video ad pops up and starts blaring audio. Not great when you’re in the office or laying in bed next to a sleeping wife

Ads pop up with hidden/disguised close buttons

Ads that, for whatever reason, wreak havoc with my browser’s operation

Enshittification is real.

[Cartooniverse]

@kenobi_65

@MacDoc

Neither BBC or CNN shows any ads or requires any log in or registration.

I pretty much never use CNN, but I’m on the BBC’s news site every day. They do have login and registration boxes at the top of the home page, but I don’t recall running into any issues with having content locked to me on BBC because I’m not paying.

FWIW, it sounds like @Cartooniverse is using a mobile device to read news, yes? I have the BBC news app on my iPhone, and again, have not ever run into a “you need to pay to read” issue with it.

I’m using them all, depending upon device at the moment.
Android phone- quite late model
Mac Mini- Mozilla Firefox browswer
iPad Pro 9.7"

My cell phone seems to allow me unlimited browsing of both CNN and BBC. Haven’t been on the iPad in a while; cannot say. The computer on the desktop, the Mac Mini- that is where I get hit with article limits and invites to pay and join.

[MacDoc]

Lose Firefox and move to Brave …have never seen what you describe and I’m on ancient Mojave.

[Beckdawrek]

I understand that entirely.

But really, except for sheer curiosity why do you(big you) need to know what’s happening exactly 32 minutes after some big news outlet got a whiff. And probably over sold the story right up front.

If it’s nuclear war or an asteroid fixing to land on our heads, time won’t matter.

I cannot, for the life of me think of one thing coming from Washington D.C. that I must know this instant.

I didn’t know the ear piercing attempt on Trump til the next day. I didn’t miss one bit of the facts when I did read it.

I just can’t understand why people need to be seeing the news 24/7. It’s bad for your mental health.

I’ve completely quit the news channels and unloaded what I had on my computer and phone. I don’t need that grief.

[wolfpup]

@Beckdawrek

I just can’t understand why people need to be seeing the news 24/7. It’s bad for your mental health.

24/7, no. But curiosity about what’s going on in the world is not a bad thing. I probably get more news from the CBC than anywhere else. It’s a solid, reliable news source and doesn’t share CNN’s penchant for sensationalism and breathless obsession with Trump, and it’s completely free without restrictions.

[Beckdawrek]

It’s a good thing you do pay attention and get good news reports. Then I can find out in a somewhat timely manner, here on the Dope. Which makes it much easier to process in my pea brain.

If not still a bit too much.

Come on, do we really need more Trump threads? That horse has been beat to death. Nothing can possibly be New news on that front. And if something does pop up, I’m sure there’s a cromulent thread that already exists to put it in.

[wolfpup]

One of the many things I love about Canada is the CBC. Aside from their website, whenever I’m driving around, the car radio is always tuned to CBC Radio One – intelligent, reasoned conversations about current topics of interest whether about politics or science, publicly funded and completely commercial-free, and if you’re driving long distances, constantly available through a network of affiliate stations and repeaters even if you don’t have satellite radio, but also on Sirius XM if you do.

[Cartooniverse]

Wolfpup, I must look into the CBC. Always has been a source of solid reportage.

Beckdawreck, while I am in agreement that 24/7 hard news is quite unhealthy for most people, I do push back at the generalization in your two posts. I don’t breathlessly follow and yearn for Trump-centric posts.

In fact, I avoid almost ALL US based news unless it really leaps up to bite me on the corneas. But all of the news apps I’ve mentioned and those mentioned by others have tons of other categories to their news presentations than “Trump Today” or “US In Decay”, etc.

I’m a news junkie. That means I enjoy deeply researched, impartially composed and professionally delivered stories on ALL manner of things.

UPI and AP so far are pretty darned good, although the AP app is a bit wonky so far. Cannot create an account and have it confirmed by email. It’s a bug in their sign-up process. But it’s not blocking me from seeing content near as I can figure.

[Beckdawrek]

I get it. But you self-descibe as a junkie. A news junkie.

And the title of your OP shows you like American news. (With very bold cursing). If you were reading or watching CNN on your device you were watching breathless, fear-mongering, scoop based news.

That’s fine if that’s what you want to do. I’m just saying day old news means it has legs and you’ll get more of the whole truth. CNN does get around to the whole story eventually. Sometimes it seemed like to me they kinda hate that one snippet that looked damning was in fact not, at all.

So…

[kenobi_65]

@Cartooniverse

The computer on the desktop, the Mac Mini- that is where I get hit with article limits and invites to pay and join.

This is just so strange to me. I read BBC News regularly on my Windows laptop, using Firefox, and I’ve never run into any limits on reading articles there. I might guess it’s a locality thing; @Cartooniverse , are you in the U.S. or elsewhere?

[Cartooniverse]

I’m in, as Uncle Cecil used to call it, Enwye.

NYC, USA.

[puzzlegal]

@Beckdawrek

I get it. But you self-descibe as a junkie. A news junkie.

And the title of your OP shows you like American news. (With very bold cursing). If you were reading or watching CNN on your device you were watching breathless, fear-mongering, scoop based news.

That’s fine if that’s what you want to do. I’m just saying day old news means it has legs and you’ll get more of the whole truth. CNN does get around to the whole story eventually. Sometimes it seemed like to me they kinda hate that one snippet that looked damning was in fact not, at all.

So…

Moderating: the OP specifically asked for online news resources. Mentioning newspapers is okay, but when you start arguing that people shouldn’t look at online news, i think you are getting into thread-shitting territory. Time to get back to taking about online options.

[Beckdawrek]

I’m sorry. Excuse my mistake.

I fully thought the OP wanted alternatives. My bad

[Dewey_Finn]

From the OP, “Anyone have a free comparable worldwide news resource I can find online?”

[Beckdawrek]

NM. Thought better not

[Projammer]

@Cartooniverse

CNN allows a tiny number of “free” articles per month, then I have no access.

Potential free solution. I use this on a couple of sites that have a limit on free views.

Go into your cookies settings and delete the ones that the site uses. I don’t know what browser you use, but Firefox sorts cookies by website so it’s easy to know which ones to delete.

[puzzlegal]

CBC has a news app that works just fine in the US. I have it on my phone, and get news alerts from it. It’s one of the 10-14 news apps i have (depending on exactly what you consider to be news.)

Reuters used to have a free app, but they’ve started asking for payment. Too bad, as they are excellent. (I’m paying.) AP is free, but has so many ads that i avoid clicking on their links. The New York Times charges to read their website, but offers pretty generous emails and alerts for free. (Or maybe to past subscribers, in the hopes of getting them back. But often, the alley has everything you really want to know.) NPR is free, and very good. Maybe the only really free source with decent analysis.

[Cartooniverse]

@Projammer

@Cartooniverse

CNN allows a tiny number of “free” articles per month, then I have no access.

Potential free solution. I use this on a couple of sites that have a limit on free views.

Go into your cookies settings and delete the ones that the site uses. I don’t know what browser you use, but Firefox sorts cookies by website so it’s easy to know which ones to delete.

Love this. Will attempt right now and complete this post after trying to use CNN again !

Seems to be working. Will have to read a bunch of articles- or at least load article pages- to see if it’s the fix.

Meanwhile, I do appreciate all of the online news source suggestions ! Installing CBC tonight.