I’m tied of the overly busy designs and annoying adverts of the major news outlets online, as well as the heap of very short articles that rarely deliver what the headelines say. Are there news sites or summary pages that others find worthwhile and easy to use?
I often use news.bbc.co.uk
I wouldn’t say it is ‘well written’ or comprehensive (articles are often short, and there are a surprising amount of grammatical and spelling errors on the site. But it’s not busy with crap (BBC is not allowed to advertise)
I also occasionally like www.guardian.co.uk
New York Times online: www.nytimes.com
The Economist has great content, but as they’re a world news outlet, they may not have the depth of coverage in any one area that you’re looking for.
The Economist and NYTimes are both leaders in standards for quality and clarity of writing. Surprisingly, I’ve found the BBC’s clarity, completeness, and grammar pretty atrocious. If it’s just the ads that annoy you, there are software ad-ons to Firefox that will actually eliminate a large portion of them.