I agree with much of what you wrote. Finding curious and open minded people is super important and I would encourage you to spend the time to find people who actively participate in their society. Unless, of course, you'd rather not.
> But you're not truly informed, at best you know the opinions of others. Or more typically, you're informed as to what media outlet publishes to get eyeballs for advertising revenue.
I do disagree that you're not truly informed. If you're coming at News from this point of view, you're essentially lumping all publications, from the Economist to OANN to RT to Huffpo to War Room together. This is a naive approach and leads to the rise of partisan publications and channels that distort reality.
I'm a bit of a pessimist here. Finding open minded people has been very difficult. I've got a set, they are my oldest and best friends, spread across the continent now.
What is your reading list and hours per week spent?
If you are regularly reading several publications like the economist and keeping tabs on diverse set of news outlets, then you might be able to see the forest. But that takes significant time, and I don't know anyone who does that or has the time to in between working and taking care of themselves/family - which is why I view it as more of a niche hobby nowadays.
I agree that it's difficult. I am very selective with friends and it takes months if not years to find a new friend. However, when one is found, they are a friend for life.
> What is your reading list and hours per week spent?
It's a combination of local (municipal, state) and national/international news. Local is easy and tends to be very factual. If you're in the US, there are a lot of smaller publication that report on local events related to your city or state.
For international news, something like r/worldnews is a good start.
National news is the trickiest one because it tends to be the most partisan and requires reading from multiple sources. I also ignore it the most for that reason (US national politics are a shitshow: no one cares about the house and senate, and over indexes on the president, which should have very limited power compared to congress).
Do you have advice on finding more resources for local news? It seems my local sources are just as biased as the national ones, and most pieces read like puff pieces to prop up political careers, hit pieces (my local news transportation writer loves to bash cal hsr), or downright advertisements just like the junk from the national outlets. A lot of local stuff that does sometimes directly impact me doesn't even seem to get written about unless there is some financial or electoral incentive to print. I feel like you almost have to work at city hall to get an understanding of the politicking between the city departments and city/county government interactions with what little drips its way out, heavily diluted into a handful of paragraphs, into local news outlets. What little does get out even from seemingly benign departments like sanitation could make for a long winded docuseries easily, so there is plenty there but no one wants to step up and shine a light on it these days at least. Maybe the environment for journalists is too litigious? I've never seen an LA times journalist accuse a blatantly corrupt politician of anything remotely improper before the FBI perp walks them out of city hall, for example (perhaps they do but these pieces don't seem very common), whereas I would expect to see these articles connecting obvious dots well before FBI indictments if the fourth estate were doing its job.
This is an interesting point. In Seattle we're lucky enough to have The Stranger. They are crass and funded by escort and pot ads, but they are very much in your face about their editorial bias and they cover only the city of Seattle.
Their coverage on local political candidates is considered the gold standard in the area. If you want to run, you will show up for the Stranger's inquisition, and god help you if you start spewing platitudes. Their elections board has no interest in being polite to you, even if they like you.
My wife is heavily involved in local politics, so we know what's going on via that gossip network. The truth is that the forces in place change very slowly. The homeless problem in Seattle? Same systemic problems it's been for a long time. Who's driving the zoning decisions in Bellevue? Same couple of developers who have a chokehold on downtown. Puget Sound Energy's ongoing poor engineering and amazing propoganda? Completely rational actors with a fixed playbook. I could write a briefing on these topics that would still be good in six months or a year.
For topics that require action on your part? By the time the news is covering it, the decisions have been made. Crazy racists running for Bellevue school board? You hear about them in the news when someone has already FOIA'd their emails and found a news outlet to publish them. Action happens via local groups, either your political party or cells of Indivisible or PTSA's or specialized action groups like CENSE. If you want to know what's going on, you need to subscribe to the newsletters of these groups.
I agree that it's not easy. While most major publications in your area have opinion columns and a leaning, I would still read them for the facts they share.
For more local news, I have found a decent strategy. This may sound weird, but I've joined local Facebook communities in my area to track the sources of the articles their members share. If you ignore the pro-/anti- rhetoric in the comment sections, you may find that some of the publications are actually legitimate sources of information about the latest happenings in the community. It doesn't have to be a scandal all the time (it often isn't). Instead, I read about new Covid regulations, about the struggles and successes of local business, about new legislation being tabled by the state government, about elections and their candidates, etc.
Most news is surprisingly human and humble. Opinions and partisan publications have made news out to be this incendiary thing whereas, in reality, it's just a bunch of people trying to live their lives and make decisions in a world of little certainty.
> But you're not truly informed, at best you know the opinions of others. Or more typically, you're informed as to what media outlet publishes to get eyeballs for advertising revenue.
I do disagree that you're not truly informed. If you're coming at News from this point of view, you're essentially lumping all publications, from the Economist to OANN to RT to Huffpo to War Room together. This is a naive approach and leads to the rise of partisan publications and channels that distort reality.