Credible information sources: One man's guide
Struggling print and online media often skip the substance. That leaves information consumers struggling to assemble our own sources of reliable reporting and analysis.
President Obama is disclosing his end-game strategy for his health-care legislative proposals. Like so many political events, his announcement is provoking a flood of analysis and commentary by media and think-tank types who both know and don't know what they are talking about.
This raises questions about the information sources to which we refer and trust.
As a lifelong Democrat and periodic campaign contributor, I receive perhaps a dozen e-mails daily from Democratic leaders and organizations seeking money or action. Sometimes I send a check. I always absorb the information being offered; mostly, though, it interprets events through a highly partisan lens. The same is true for communications emanating from the other end of the political spectrum. I don't receive Republican or conservative communications often but regularly log in to see what they are saying. No surprise: They also offer a partisan spin. If you seek objective, serious analysis of policy or events, it is best to avoid sources with a hard partisan or ideological basis.
Whom can you believe?
I start my day online with Crosscut (of course), The Seattle Times, online P-I, the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Hill, and The Economist. I check for incoming e-mails from organizations and think tanks I trust. Among electronic media, I most rely on National Public Radio and PBS' hour-long nightly news summary.
Now to individuals and specific, credible organizational information sources.
If you want serious, balanced political and policy analysis, I recommend especially the following: Michael Barone, editor of the Almanac of American Politics; pollster Peter Hart; analyst Charlie Cook; CBS News analyst Jeff Greenfield; NBC analyst Chuck Todd; CNN's Candy Crowley and John King; the New York Times' David Brooks and Tom Friedman; the Washington Post's David Broder, David Ignatius, Anne Applebaum and Bob Samuelson; U.S. News & World Report publisher/columnist Mort Zuckerman; PBS' Margaret Warner and Paul Solman; and political blogs Politico.com and The Daily Beast. The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal editorial pages are the most solidly grounded nationally — although both take predictable liberal and conservative positions, respectively. The once august New York Times editorial page has become a bastion of almost laughable political correctitude. Correspondents who serve as credible media watchers are Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post and Ken Auletta of the New Yorker.
With so much of our dialogue concerning financial and economic issues, I turn regularly to information from the Concord Coalition, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Institute for International Economics, Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, and the websites of the Federal Reserve, Office of Management and Budget, and Congressional Budget Office. On these and other issues I also look to The Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Council on Foreign Relations, and Pew Charitable Trusts.
Most of the people and institutions, listed above, could be characterized as moderate to liberal — reflecting, no doubt, my own biases. Most of the institutions have bipartisan leadership and funding. I shy from those with a hard ideological approach, left or right. Those I use and respect have one thing in common: intellectual integrity in their analysis.
The Crosscut family aside, we have fewer local choices falling into the informed-and-also-balanced category. I miss the work of Bill Virgin, economics columnist of the late print P-I. The Times' Jon Talton's economics copy is not yet up to the quality of Virgin's, but it is based in objectivity. I find the Times' Bruce Ramsey and Joni Balter the most consistent purveyors of unbiased, substantive political and policy commentary, although both get less exposure at the Times than several less knowledgeable columnists and correspondents.
Perhaps the city's best journalist is Art Thiel, who regularly writes for the P-I. We could use copy meeting Thiel's high sports-coverage standards in our policy and political coverage. I look to the Times' Mike Lindblom for coverage of important regional transportation issues. I check periodically several local political and policy blogs but, as most such blogs everywhere, find them too often angry and ranting, too thinly informed about the subjects they cover.
As has frequently been observed, we have dumbed down in America. Part of this is due to a failing public-education system. Part of it flows from a coarsened and more shallow popular culture. But part of it also is due to the lowered performance standards of public media, which once were a cornerstone of our democracy.
Print and network TV media are failing economically and, as they fail, often have sacrificed quality and substance in their news coverage. We information consumers often must work hard to find source material we can trust. I've listed above those which I do. You no doubt have your own list and, no doubt, will take issue with mine. The important thing is to seek information you believe to be reliable.
Like what you just read? Support high quality local journalism by becoming a member of Crosscut.com today!
Comments:
Posted Wed, Mar 3, 5:26 a.m. inappropriate
Hear, hear...
As a self-professed moderate conservative, I find it interesting that my preferred sources for news and commentary are nearly identical to yours.
Posted Wed, Mar 3, 8:45 a.m. inappropriate
Author's note: Perhaps to illustrate the point about failing print media,
the accompanying photograph to the article shows "The Newstand" in Bellingham. Newsstand is of course incorrectly spelled on the storefront.
And, from what I understand, the shop recently closed due to too little patronage from customers with a print orientation. Sign of times.
Posted Wed, Mar 3, 10:15 a.m. inappropriate
I like the premise that news consumers now more than ever need to actively search out a variety of sources, both the "mainstream" media and the blogs, and not just focus on the sources who mirror our own biases. I have my own set of daily must-reads.
Posted Wed, Mar 3, 1:58 p.m. inappropriate
As an information consumer who doesn't have all day to bop around the many internet sources you've recommended, what are the three or four that can be depended on to give a regular, objective, and informed analysis of important national and international issues? And could perhaps the new on-line media provide a valuable service by tailoring the analyses to the particular interests of the consumer? So for example, if I want to get a balanced take on the post-Copenhagen climate change policy debate, is there one source that summarizes the relevant news and/or provides links? It would seem that consumers would even pay money to get the best the new media has to offer that is both broad and focused, and is efficently delivered.
Posted Wed, Mar 3, 4:42 p.m. inappropriate
dn: Suggest, to meet your objective, you go to Google and find the old- and new-media sources listed for the subject matter. Otherwise, there is no substitute for day in, day out reading of some of the sources I suggest as well as others you may favor. The Economist, for instance, is a publication which has carried regular, objective assessments of the post-Copenhagen climate change debate.
Posted Wed, Mar 3, 5:46 p.m. inappropriate
Ted, my goodness. An opening paragraph telling us that information from partisans are read partisan? Astonishing. "a lifelong Democrat". Yep, you and Bob Shrum, eight time loser as campaign manager running Democrats as middle of the road apologists for the party. Hint- liberalism needs no apologies, making apologies only makes you look weak.
Your reading list would certainly be approved by the Village, the social coterie that runs Washington DC, but won't put you in touch with the Democratic grassroots. Friedman, Broder, Brooks, Applebaum, the Politico, WSJ, Seattle Times, the Washington Post, NPR, yet somehow not a single liberal voice is to be found. Sure, as a leftie partisan (and proud voter for Dan Evans) my opinion skews, but in this entire list I found not one actual liberal, and while the names I've just repeated are "serious" centrists, "The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal editorial pages are the most solidly grounded nationally" lean right and hard right respectively. In short, this list is Not Balanced. And "credible media watchers are Howard Kurtz" is, ah, incredible. Here's a short assignment for after the next game. Do a search on Kurtz at mediamatters.org. He's considered to be a right-wing hack by observers on the left. "Lowered performance standards" defines him.
Art Thiel, Seattle's number one journalist? Bingo. We agree on this point, and I don't think it's an accident that he was a leader in the union struggle with the Times/PI management. The man is grounded, insightful, and possesses style and wit. And Steve Kelley considerably out-earns him. Life can be cruel.
Posted Thu, Mar 4, 9:38 a.m. inappropriate
Interesting list, Ted, but as you say we all have our own. The challenge these days is sorting through the cyber-tsunami to find accurate, thorough, ethical and reliable sources that we can trust, as you also acknowledge. That takes a lot of time, and most of us don't have enough to check out all the sources you do.
There are some helpful sites and tools around, such as www.newstrust.net, where a cadre of reviewers send in stories and grade them online. In England, www.mediastandardstrust.com encourages high-quality journalism, and their Value Added News software, now being used by Associated Press, adds depth and context to stories. Locally, Porter Bayne's www.insightapps.com is an exciting new tool that allows instant in-text comments and analysis, and he's got a pilot project going with The Huffington Post. Also, the Washington News Council is promoting the idea of a "TAO of Journalism" pledge - A Commitment to Transparency, Accountability and Openness for anyone practicing journalism in any form. See www.taoofjournalism.org and my blog at www.wanewscouncil.org/blog/ for more details. If journalists were more transparent, accountable and open -- which is what they demand of everyone else -- the profession would be more trusted and we'd all be better off.