GlobalPost
For most of my life I haven't had the habit of reading the news, for a combination of reasons: the quality of most newspapers seems terrible to me, I'm interested in current events but not that interested, and I'm not sure it's worth the time and emotional energy it takes.
At the same time, I always felt that there had to be some time-efficient, high-quality way to be aware of the important events going on, but I never found out one. Until recently, when I discovered GlobalPost, an independent daily newsletter that does precisely what I wanted:
- The fact that it's a newsletter means I don't have to remember to check it; I get it once a day.
- It doesn't have ads, which is great because ads suck, but also because the incentives are different. This also means paying the subscription, but I think it's worth it.
- The coverage is really global. Most "global news" sources I've seen are extremely US-centric.
- The length and quality are good. The writing is decent but a bit trite; it's one of the few things that I would change, but it doesn't bother me that much.
(The content, by the way, is unlisted but available without signing in, and the YYYY-MM-DD URL is predictable. This means I could avoid paying and just visit it every day. But I enjoy supporting quality work and I like the convenience of getting it in my email when it's out).
The only thing I really don't like is the science news section at the end. I don't know why they do that. Maybe it's meant to end on a positive note after the gloom that normally comes with global news. But the few times I've read it I've found it boring and unnecessary, so I just skip it.
With things like this, the acid test is the moment they cover something you are more knowledgeable about. And the only time (so far) when they included an entry on Argentina, I thought they were fair and balanced.
So overall this is a great resource and I'm glad I found it. Maybe I'll get tired of it in some months, but for now I'm always happy to see a new email arrive, which is the ultimate praise a newsletter can receive.