News Sites

The other day my sister asked me if I can recommend any good/trustworthy news sites. I listed some of my favorites, starting with my long-time aggregator of choice, Joemygod.com. 

But I have a new one of late, recommended by someone on Bluesky: whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com. Essentially a headline aggregator, the site was founded by journalist Matt Kiser. His shtick is simple: "neutral-ish," no opinion pieces, few adjectives or adverbs ("It’s unnecessary to add a “just” in front of 38% of Americans approve of the job the president is doing," he explains in his "About" page),  no ads, no paywall, and all sources cited (and a diversity thereof).

The effect is that each day's post offers a slimmed-down rundown of top news stories refreshingly free from alarmist, if-it-bleeds-it-leads framing.

Now, I'm not a huge fan of fetishizing neutrality when it comes to reporting. Especially when (for example) the Trump administration transgresses longstanding norms and laws, it's the journalist's job to provide that context. Just how unusual or out-of-bounds is this act? I concur that, all too often, major news media "sanewash" or "both sides" acts that should shock the conscience. 

Intriguingly, though, WTFJHT's plain vanilla reportorial tone manages to be somehow more shocking than any three headlines put together. I misplaced the skeet, but someone online quipped that we're in a time when a simple list of what Trump and his administration did in a single day would read like laughable conspiracy plots. 

I mean, I find the daily list on that site shocking and unbelievable. But I put that dry rendering side-by-side with the posts I read on Bluesky and other sites, where people who know (and plenty of people who don't know) shatter the alarm bells trying to get folk to understand how outre it is to, for example, grant access to secure financial servers to a private citizen and his cronies. 

I wonder, in other words, whether a Trump supporter could read the site (whose name likely weeds out certain conservative audiences) and conclude, "Good job! Hurrah!"

For more nuanced coverage of what the other side thinks, I usually consult Tangle News, Isaac Saul's newsletter that does "both sides" reporting the right way. He introduces a news item, shares representative right-leaning views, representative left-leaning views, and then his (or his staff's) own view. I don't always agree with them. (For example, I think Tangle's take on Trump's tariffs as mainly unobjectionable, even effective, flouts the consensus of experts that call them dangerous--though the site does acknowledge those experts' opinions.) But I appreciate the reality check of "not everyone thinks like the folk you follow on Bluesky."

Related to yesterday's post: Apparently Congressional Democrats have roused themselves to a more coordinated response to Trump's blitzkrieg volley of executive orders. Meanwhile, Trump today announced a pause on the right-now-to-stop-an-emergency tariffs on Canada and Mexico. He will of course claim victory: See? Being strong works! I am unclear exactly what kind of victory he won apart from confirming his love of self-aggrandizing chaos. Apparently just asserting victory works very well for him. We'll see how effectively Democrats--or the calamitous effects of Trump's bull-in-china-shop tactics--mute his crowing.