Apparently my previous post has more than a few folks head-scratching. I don’t blame them. I had a hard time writing that one, and I’m still not very happy with it, but it was as good as it was going to get. When I can’t put the words down clearly, I take it as a sign that I don’t have the issue fully worked out in my head. I will continue working on it.
The interesting thing to me is that I got more contacts (via the contact form) than on any other post. OK, it was 3, but when your readers number in the tens per day for any given post, that’s a significant number.
The gist of the question can be summed up as “How/where do you get your information?” Easy enough to answer that.
I have a lot of places I go to, pretty much daily, to scan headlines and read the things that, for whatever reason, pique my interest. Among those are a couple of legacy media sites, FoxNews and CNN. Yes, I will look at CNN, usually when the noise level on something is high-I want to see first hand what the wackos are saying. FoxNews simply because they are, failings in the last election aside, still the closest thing to what I understand as “journalism” left among the big media sites. Of course, what I was taught about practice of journalism in university would get a guy canceled these days. Who needs factual reporting with opinions limited to the op-ed pages when there’s a society to re-engineer?
I also look at several local TV stations and newspapers. None of them are doing great work, but at least they cover the local big stories. Plus it’s interesting to see what they don’t cover. That tells you volumes, especially when you are getting the real story from people who are involved.
I also hit a number of “alt-media” sites, such as Bogino Report, Brietbart, Liberty Daily, Newsmax, OffThePress, Rantingly and ZeroHedge, just to name about half. The list is something that changes over time, since no site (remember the Drudge Report?) stays useful forever. I’ve also noticed that some cycle from useful to not useful and back again at a fairly fast pace.
There is also The Mailing List That Shall Not Be Named. It’s a small, eclectic and highly astute group I’ve been part of for years. I get a lot of good information and help from there. I don’t know what I’d do without those folks. We’ve lost a lot over the years to the depredations of age and disease, but those of us left continue to hang in there and keep the conversation going.
Gab is another source of interesting information. Gab is the freest speech platform on the InterTubz that I can find. Yes, that attracts all sorts of “interesting” folks like Nazis and other racists, and they often think that I’m one of them because I occasionally agree with their stopped clock. I just block the stuff I find odious and move along. And it’s my favorite place to shitpost.
There are also a few blogs I hit, and they’re over at the right in the Blogroll.
Occasionally something I post here, there or somewhere will bring in something via the contact form. Those are often very interesting, and occasionally lead to forming a new relationship with someone interesting.
If all this looks like a lot of work and time, it is and it isn’t. Normally I simply scan most places. I might read 1-2 things per stop, and even then I often don’t read the entire piece. Maybe it turns out not to be interesting after all, or all the good stuff is in the first few paragraphs (the inverted pyramid still lives in a few places). Plus, while I’m improving physically in some ways, I still have a limited number of hours per day I’m able to put out good effort, so I have time to do this. Sometimes it’s 30 minutes while eating, sometimes it’s an hour or two, perhaps during my mid-work break.
I do this because I’m in part a news junky (and I have a broad definition of “news”) and I like to stay informed. During our current uncertain times I feel this is more important than ever. I do it in part because a fair portion of my blog posts originate from this activity in some way. And some days, like when I’m fighting a migraine, it’s the max effort I can put out.
So there’s your answer. It’s nothing mysterious, Just time and effort, as most things in life are.
