'Real News' sites

[MikeT]

This is a foreign policy thread of sorts, or at least a 'world news' thread...  After reading four or five good editorials about the situation in Iraq tonight, I thought that in lieu of posting specific articles I find interesting personally, it might be more helpful if I just posted some of my own sources of info and let people take their own interest.  I also thought it might be helpful to forum members to have a place to deposit links to good sites for finding intelligent, vetted, or at least 'apparently well reasoned' information.

Here's a few I use:

For a conservative perspective on what I would call 'mostly corroborated news which I generally find to be accurate when I conduct my own fact checks'... probably no surprises here:

www.breitbart.com (news)
www.reuters.com (news, I prefer UK versions which have different info than the US versions of the site, esp. mobile versions)
www.theblaze.com (more toward editorial than news)
www.nationalreview.com (editorial which usually follows world events by a few days)

For info generally:
www.drudgereport.com
Personally, I like Drudge, and I usually jump off from there, but I break his site out from the prior group because occassionally I find the links he posts to be a little... maybe... 'less vetted' and occassionally wandering into what I personally consider to be 'tin foil hat land'.  That said, he often has stuff that beat the others to the punch, I just find that the others seem to do a better job in my opinion in waiting to corroborate before they run it out, whereas Drudge just seems to throw it all out there sometimes and leave it up to users to check.

For news on Terrorism:
http://www.longwarjournal.org/  Really like this site as an aggregator for what is going on in Middle East / North Africa and acompanying policy ramifications.

Sources which I am less sure of, or which I have found to be 'less consistent' quality wise, but from which i have previously obtained good information, often well before US news gets around to it:
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/home.html
http://www.theguardian.com/uk
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/  I put FP down here because I sometimes find the editorials to be more politically polemicized than other sites, meaning he articles often seem to have an evident lean right or left.
http://www.criticalthreats.org/  A little more toward editorial, but still toward policy and not industry.

Suspect sources, but still useful in considering what the other side is making into their news, and for alternate viewpoint:
www.rt.com (User beware:  the old radio Kremlin from the dark ages )

Historic Interest:
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/index.html

Military/ Defense:
http://www.janes.com/security/terrorism-insurgency
http://www.stripes.com/

Econ:
http://www.zerohedge.com/

Misc. local news from overseas hotsposts:
Iraq:   www.iraqinews.com
Israel: http://www.jpost.com/
In general:  http://www.world-newspapers.com/

The door to the rabbit hole...?  This is a weird one, a blog almost, but it's an occassionally useful aggregator for stuff I want to read up on from sources I tend to trust more.  My reaction to it may be more of the 'old internet look' but I still have found out some interesting things from stuff I've seen here:
http://wnnetwork.com/

None of these are obviously "warranted", and I would be interested to see what others use.  No real need to post the typical 'mains' like CNN (etc.) as we all know they are out there unless there is something unusual about them.  I am looking for more 'off the beaten' path direct sources in English if people have them.  Personally, I have found the lattter to be generally a lot more reliable than relying on any sort of TV news any more. 

Happy reading.

[G M]

Agreed about drudge and his linking to Alex Jones/prison planet. I was disappointed when he started doing that.

Asia times and the South China Morning Post are good places to read up on Asia.

[Crafty_Dog]

I share the sentiments about Alex Jones. 

[MikeT]

I also agree on the Infowars comments.  Funny, tho:  I have had the same experience there as I have had at the last site I mention.  I have seen Jones post things that when I look into them myself leave me scratching my head a little going 'holy ***, who knew?!?',  the **occassional** accuracy of which is what may explain his elevation to inclusion at Drudge (and the accuracy thereof which I am not at all trying to defend). 

That said (the part about his occassionally managing to find a nut), I find his whole premise about trying to fit every piece of information into a grandiose conspiracy theory to simply be... naieve... I guess I'd say.  The world is way too complicated, secrets are way too hard to keep between two people, let alone thousands, and 'at least half the time' I think our own government (including the intelligence services) is probably just struggling to keep up with WTF is going on in the world at any given moment and probably doing their level best to SERVE the country as opposed to ordering it.  For that reason, I generally try to avoid his site until somebody else confirms it... and by that point, whatever it is is generally 'out there' at more trusted sources.

I also have to say, I generally agree with Jones' focus on ('obsession'?  'coverage'?) of the general militarization of local police forces, which issue I go back and forth on, as I have LEO and BP candidate students and can see both sides of that one. For instance, when I first heard about DHS and Dept. of Ag ammo/ weapons purchases, it was actually via a post at Infowars (he says sheepishly  ) So theres' an example of something he got 'right', it's just 'what he does with it after' that keeps me skeptical-- healthily so.  But because of that, I still occassionally look in on his page.  I just quickly leave it, wash my hands afterwards, and fact check the hell out of anything I read there.   

GM, thanks for the links, I will check those out as well.

[Crafty_Dog]

Mike, your analysis of AJ adn methodology with regard to him seem sound to me.  However, just to be clear, we do not regard AJ as a source worthy of citing here. 

[MikeT]

NP, understood.    I wouldn't cite him to substantiate a magic trick; he has just managed to surprise me a few times.

[DougMacG]

Nice lists of sources!  Links for the two GM added:

http://www.atimes.com/    Asia Times
 
http://www.scmp.com/frontpage/international     South China Morning Post

[MikeT]

Another one I came across recently that appears to offer intelligent information...  see their 'about'.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/default.asp

[MikeT]

Another one I tripped over today...

http://allafrica.com/

[MikeT]

Bill Whittle is scathingly awesome.

https://www.billwhittle.com/

[Crafty_Dog]

Outstanding!

Please post on the "Rants" thread!

[MikeT]

http://franklincenterhq.org/resources/federal-resources/

[MikeT]

http://counterjihadreport.com/

[Crafty_Dog]

Recommended by someone whom I respect greatly.

http://20committee.com/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://americanmind.org/essays/