Reading List for a New Era
We need new strategies to offset the sane-washed "news" provided by the corporate giants.
Call it soft-pedaling. Call it “sane-washing.” Call it “under-reporting.” No matter what label you apply, it’s all the same — the normalization by our media of the policies and actions of Trump and his cronies.
So many of our traditional media outlets, both print and broadcast, have been treating the events of the last few months as if they were all just a normal part of political life in the United States. They most certainly are not.
You can take the events of any single day of this second term of Trump’s presidency and stack them up against the same day in any other president’s first or second term, and you’ll see just how abnormal things are.
Can you imagine Ronald Reagan inviting a ketamine-fueled guy with a chain saw to share the stage with him? Would Jimmy Carter have held ad hoc press conferences to denigrate and threaten judges who ruled against him? Would we think it was normal if George H.W. Bush forced through an unqualified medical crackpot from across the aisle as the head of Health and Human Services and then try to pass it off as bipartisanship?
None of those scenarios would seem possible. But the American people have been the metaphorical frogs in boiling water, having gradually become numb toward and even accustomed to Trump’s erratic and often illegal behavior over the last decade.
Our news media have followed suit, with deteriorating journalistic standards concurrent with Trump’s descent into fascism.
There’s that word. Fascism. Have any of our mainstream media dared to apply that term to Trump? If so, I haven’t seen it. But the evidence of Trump’s fascism mounts with every day he’s in office: Purging the military of generals he perceives will be disloyal to him. Threatening to impeach judges who rule against him. The “disappearing” of supposed criminals — and even just people who disagree with him — without due process.
While our media may report on those individual events, there seems to be a collective blind spot regarding the bigger picture.
The danger is that it is less likely the public at large will tie these pieces together, because we’ve been raised to believe that, oh, no, this is America! Fascism happens in other places. We’re the land of the free and the home of the brave, for heaven’s sake. Nearly 250 years of a functioning democracy has lulled us into a sense that it will always be thus.
Redeveloping Our News Habits
If we are to deal with the reality of the rapid ascent of fascism and not some sanitized version of reality spoon-fed to us by corporate media, we need to switch from being passive consumers of News McNuggets to being a nation of active news and information seekers. We’re in an era in which there is more information available to us than ever before (for now, at least) so, with a little effort, we can be less reliant on our old news sources.
Our broadcast media have become almost 100% corporate owned. In that environment, journalistic standards often take a back seat to corporate profits. If stock prices for the corporation that owns a news entity are at risk, either inadvertently from an unflattering story about the administration or from a direct threat, corporations have historically erred on the side of shareholders. Our three major TV networks each have corporate overlords:
NBC News — part of NBCUniversal Media, which is owned by Comcast
ABC News — owned by entertainment giant The Walt Disney Company
CBS News — owned by Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS)
Long gone are the days of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. There is no present day equivalent of the Huntley-Brinkley Report. The 30-minute evening newscasts on each of the three major networks, once a mainstay in most households and a primary source of reliable reporting for most Americans, have now become purveyors of pablum, consisting of a few surface level headlines and the obligatory “feel-good” story at the end of each newscast. Investigative journalism is all but absent.
And do I even have to say anything about Fox “News” (which is not news at all)? The reliance on Fox by huge swaths of the American population is one of the primary reasons we are where we are today.
Even many of our local network affiliates are owned by the extreme right-wing Sinclair Broadcasting, which requires its stations to run pre-packaged right-wing features on their local news broadcasts. Sinclair stealthily inserts or reinforces right-wing talking points and outright disinformation into millions of homes every day. In some cities, Sinclair owns several different stations, further narrowing the choices for propaganda-free local news.
Local Fox affiliates also often include right-leaning features from Fox News in their local newscasts. For example, a recent Fox News package dropped into local Fox affiliates about Trump’s speech at the DOJ conveniently omitted:
that his presence there flouted the traditional separation of the Presidency from the Judiciary
that the cheering audience for his speech was hand-selected to include only Trump supporters and was not representative of the DOJ as a whole
that the speech was full of political grievance, including the naming of names of people formerly within the DOJ who are his enemies
Instead, his incoherent rambling was edited out of the package and it was merely reported that Trump was warmly welcomed as if it were just another day at DOJ.
For people on the right, the phrase “I’ve done my own research” means they saw a meme on Facebook or heard something Sean Hannity said on the radio. That’s not what I’m referring to. We can’t accept that as the definition for research.
Instead, I’m suggesting that we each identify news and information sources we can put our trust in. We should view even those sources with scrutiny, making sure that we double- and triple-source our information.
Who, then, can we trust to provide us with complete and accurate information in an era in which the political and monied interests only want us to hear their side of things?
There is no single source to trust. That’s not to say that there aren’t trustworthy sources but rather that one shouldn’t rely on just one outlet for information, nor should we automatically trust everything one of our favored outlets reports. In fact, we shouldn’t automatically dismiss everything that comes from mainstream media or even from less than trustworthy sources.
A better approach is to regularly read a variety of reliable sources and perhaps to start a “reading list” of your own — those sources that you find that provide truthful information and not just confirmation bias.
Don’t exclude the more traditional sources of information; to the contrary, it’s valuable to read a story in those traditional outlets and compare it with what you read about the same story in alternative sources.
Here’s a starter set, complete with links:
Independent Investigative Journalists
Popular Information. This project of Judd Legum, formerly of ThinkProgress, often has breaking news based on their own investigations.
Musk Watch. A spinoff of the Popular Information pages, focusing on the unelected co-president and his activities. It’s worth taking a look at their DOGE Tracker, too, which keeps track of the false claims of savings touted by Elon and the DOGE bros.
The American Prospect. “The American Prospect is devoted to promoting informed discussion on public policy from a progressive perspective. In print and online, the Prospect brings a narrative, journalistic approach to complex issues, addressing the policy alternatives and the politics necessary to create good legislation. We help to dispel myths, challenge conventional wisdom, and expand the dialogue.”
ProPublica. ProPublica’s mission is “[t]o expose abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing.”
Public Citizen. Public Citizen is “a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power.” While their site isn’t a traditional news site, their reporting on their activities is usually relevant and newsworthy.
Old-School Magazines
The New Yorker. The New Yorker, now 100 years old, has a well-earned reputation for obsessive fact checking. While not exclusively about politics or news, their reporting on politics is generally insightful and trustworthy, and it often provides a different slant on what you think you already know.
The Nation. The Nation is probably at the top of the list of progressive news sources that conservatives love to hate. It’s been around since 1865 but don’t let that lead you to believe it’s stodgy or backwards. They boast of “tenacious muckraking, provocative commentary, and spirited debate about politics and culture.”
Independent Voices
Heather Cox Richardson. If you want to understand the day’s news in historical perspective, there is no better current source than Heather Cox Richardson. Her ability to make history come alive and her tirelessness are awe inspiring and her daily reports are truly the proverbial “first draft of history.”
Robert Reich. The former Secretary of Labor is a prolific “explainer” of the news — with both advanced education and first-hand experience in government.
Joyce Vance. This former U.S. Attorney reports almost daily on the events of the day from the legal perspective in her Substack entitled Civil Discourse. There’s also the occasional feature about her beloved chickens.
Michelangelo Signorile. This long-time progressive and LGBTQ+ writer, activist, and broadcaster has a daily SiriusXM show with a feisty attitude. His posts often include audio exchanges in which he challenges MAGA talking points in conversations with real live MAGAs.
The Handbasket. The Handbasket is a project of Marisa Kabas who has broken some fantastic stories, including some of the earliest reporting about the sham/scam known as George Santos.
Non-U.S. News Sources
The rest of the world doesn’t think like us, and they don’t have to kowtow to Felon47’s threats. Consequently, they’re often more reliable and more comprehensive than U.S. media.
CBC News. The news site of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. (It’s been refreshing to visit the CBC News site a few times lately to find that Trump’s name does not appear on the front page.)
BBC News. The British Broadcasting Corporation news service with global reach. It’s sometimes a bit stodgy but generally committed to high standards of journalism.
France24. The English language site of the “French state-owned publicly funded international news television network based in Paris.”
The Guardian. The Guardian describes itself as “a global news organisation that delivers fearless, investigative journalism - giving a voice to the powerless and holding power to account.”
This is hardly a comprehensive list of all the news sources worth following. It’s really just a sampling.
The bottom line is that, in this era of rampant conspiracy theories, we should never take any single blip of news or even any single news source at face value. Do your own research — the real kind.