As you try to keep informed about what is going on in the world, there are a few principles to keep in mind. First, do not waste much time reading essays and editorials by people who are intellectually dishonest, or ignorant, or unintelligent. Try to focus your reading and media consumption on people who may enlighten you or at least offer you intelligent and well-informed opinions. Life is too short to waste it reading the work of ideological hacks, provocateurs, people who simply appeal to your cognitive biases and prejudices without educating or challenging you, or people who oppose your way of thinking, but are so stupid or ignorant that you merely grow a sense of superiority when you read or listen to their arguments. Second, read from a range of ideologies and perspectives. The mainstream and the alternative information sources ought to be read in balance, and you ought to read a bit from all sorts of ideological perspectives. Reading only what you agree with will dull your wits. Third, try to read about world events in a way that builds your ability to engage in your community and improve your life or the lives of others in your community. Much of what we encounter in the media does us no good. It is just tedious repetition of information about human nature, or trivial information about things that do not matter to us. For most things, it is better to read about “current events” two or three days after events have passed, so you will not waste your time reading about passing ephemeral matters. That is not always the case, however; as you may need to know about upcoming events so you can get involved, as for example, when you read that some sort of legislation is proposed, and you want to express your opinion to those who will be voting or negotiating about that legislation, or when some event is coming up that you will want to attend.
Here is a list of persons and sources that are generally well-informed, intelligent, and capable of writing well. Depending upon your ideological and value preferences, you will love some of these authors and sources and dislike others, but for the most part these writers are fair, honest, intelligent, and well-informed. They are usually the sort of persons with whom you can respectfully disagree or else enthusiastically agree.
Intelligent and well-informed conservatives and libertarians worth reading:
Ross Douthat
David Frum
Arthur Brooks
David Brooks
Bradley J Birzer
Caitlin Flanagan
Mary O'Grady
Glenn Reynolds
Nick Gillespie
Peggy Noonan
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
Rachel Lu (and here, and here)
Juan Williams
Good radical writers worth reading
Adam Curtis
Ajamu Baraka
Noam Chomsky
Chris Hedges
Naomi Klein
John Pilger
Tom Engelhardt
Kevin Drum
Michael Albert
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Jessica Valenti
Ted Rall
Liberal and moderate writers worth reading
Juan Cole
James Fallows
William K. Black (Bill Black)
Paul Krugman
Robert Reich
Nicholas Kristof
Maureen Dowd
Bill Moyers
Rachael Maddow
Ruth Marcus
James K. Galbraith (and his publications)
Dean Baker
John Oliver
Greens, anarchists, and others who do not really fit in.
Natalie Bennett (mostly about women’s history, but some Green posts)
Bright Green (UK blog and independent media source for Greens)
Kevin Carson (Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism—2015 and earlier)
Green Pages (newspaper of the Green Party of the United States)
Joschka Fischer (led the German Green party for 20 years)
Caroline Lucas (Green Party member of Parliament in the UK from Brighton)
Jordan B. Peterson (He is a whiny Canadian conservative, but he is smart)
Keith Preston (Writer for the Attack the System blog of Pan-Anarchism)
Lorna Salzman (one of the best intellectuals among American Green activists)
Derek Wall (another UK source, a Coordinator for Green party International)
Tom Last
Clint Sabom
Hanzi Freinacht
Anna Bergren Miller
Joe Brewer
Steady State Economy advocates like Herman Daly and Brian Czech
Fellowship for Intentional Community people.
Startup Societies
Anarchist Writers
Here are my top dozen recommended sources for good information with minimal cognitive bias and ideological skew.
2) ProPublica.
3) Research from the Pew Charitable Trusts.
4) The Atlantic. Outstanding source, with a long history.
7) I will recommend The Economist here for news reporting. They are a traditional liberal (conservative and pro-business) news source, and they are completely open about their bias, but they are English, they are moderate, and their loyalty to a traditional liberal bias means they are pretty liberal about things related to civil rights or human rights. And, as a “conservative” British source, they are actually close to the middle-of-the-road in American politics (as we have a far more conservative political culture than the United Kingdom; their conservatives are like our moderates, their extreme right wing is like our normal Republicans, their moderates are like our liberal Democrats, their liberals are like our radical fringe leftists). The Economist’s news reporting is top-notch.
8) Reuters. One of the big three news services. Mainstream.
9) United Press International (UPI). Mainstream to the extreme.
10) Associated Press (AP)
11) The Wilson Center
12) The International Crisis Group (if you care about peace, keep an eye on their studies and reporting)
Special Mention: For information about the Middle East, I strongly recommend my friend Juan Cole’s blog Informed Comment. Juan tends toward liberal viewpoints, and there is some liberal bias at this site, but he is an independent thinker, and he has the detachment of a scholar, which makes his website worthy of inclusion in a list of unbiased sources.
These sources are of high quality, have good information, avoid fake news, and generally provide excellent journalism. Some are less biased (the Brookings Institute), and some are so biased that it may start to annoy you (The Nation, The Young Turks).
3) Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
4) Mother Jones
5) The Guardian
8) The Nation
9) Vice
10) The Young Turks
I cannot find ten good conservative sources. There is just too much detachment from reality in much of the contemporary conservative media realm, which I think is an artifact of historical trends, and not something we can blame on inherent qualities of conservatism. There are a few sources with a conservative bias that usually stick to the facts, and I recommend these to expose you to conservative perspectives if you are liberal, or give you higher quality conservative thought and arguments if you are conservative.
The Wall Street Journal (the editorial page is probably the most influential source of conservative opinion in the nation, at least among elites. Until recent years the news reporting was admired for its accuracy, thoroughness, and lack of bias, although in recent years a conservative bias has been creeping into the news reporting under new ownership.)
Reason. It is a Libertarian source, but Libertarians are essentially conservatives who have an anarchist streak, as opposed to an authoritarian streak.
American Enterprise Institute.
Here are some conservative sources I would not recommend. I do not trust them. They have earned reputations for shoddy journalism and poor quality scholarship. But, they are significant conservative sources to compare with the liberal sources, and even a source with a deservedly bad reputation may sometimes offer useful insights or observations, sometimes it can be so; therefore I offer these links:
The Cato Institute (the libertarian style of conservatism)
The Mises Institute (more libertarian stuff)