Newsfeeds

Don't know about you, but I'm a tad fed up with newspapers no longer being newspapers, but propaganda machines and purveyors of vacuous tittle-tattle. Doesn't matter whether they have a left or right-wing bent, they consistently fail to report facts without putting their own political spin on them - or are selective in which facts they bother to report.

The on-line versions are even worse, publishing blatantly provocative or salacious items to draw clicks and advertising revenue.

The BBC is no longer what it used to be either. Having to pander to accusations of bias (most of which are politically motivated - the more biased you are, the more biased you're going to see anything that's middle-of-the-road; it's a relative measure) it now has to tread a very delicate line and has become adept at ensuring it gives equal coverage to both sides of any argument, even if it means giving total crackpots equal billing with experts.

I have been using Flipboard for some time, as at least you get a spread of opinion (for news is now opinion, rather than factual reporting) from both ends of the political spectrum, but it's wearing having to read two extremes rather than something from a reasoned viewpoint (which is not necessarily the middle).

That said, Reuters consistently comes out in analyses as politically neutral and has now become my preferred newsfeed. There's also the fact that most news organisations actually take their main stories from only three sources, Reuters being one of them. It's only after receiving the Reuters wire report that newspaper hacks put their spin on a story before publishing it.