The Economist
If Ernest Hemingway were a news magazine, he would be the Economist. Known for its tough, terse articles, the Economist's weekly news publication provides articles which give, on average, more background, analysis, and perspective on how an issue fits in with the rest of the world, than any newspapers or news magazines. While the Economist does have a libertarian bent, its analysis of the news is balanced. And because it's only published weekly, the Economist is better able to prioritize the most important issues. If I could read only one news source, it would without question be the Economist.
National Public Radio, Public Broadcasting System
Even for this Northern California native, National Public Radio (NPR) is at times a little too liberal. That said, there are many high quality programs that deal with important policy issues in significantly greater depth than mainstream media. For example, the News Hour with Jim Lehrer is, in my view, the best daily news show on radio or TV. Instead of simply running through headlines, the News Hour divides the show into four interview segments. Each segment consists of discussion/debates with experts from either side of a timely and important issue, allowing the viewer to get a deeper and more balanced perspective than would otherwise be possible.
Looking to the Future
While Charlie Rose, The Economist, and NPR are all useful educational tools — I believe our electorate would benefit hugely from increasing its consumption of them — they alone are not enough. We need more media outlets to focus less on providing entertainment and more on educating the public on the issues that shape their lives. Private companies can and may take it upon themselves to do this, but heretofore we have not seen a preponderance of leadership in this area. As a result, we, private citizens and our government must beat the drum of better education for our electorate — more resources and more awareness are needed, and we must take it upon ourselves to do so. Tell your neighbors and tell your friends. Let's get the electorate, and ourselves, educated and do more to hold our policy makers to account.
Article comments
1 - Joanne Huspek
Your title says it all.
There's a lot of information out there, and it's also important to dig deeper than the surface. You never know what you might find.
2 - GACDKR
3. Even if all this information was made readily available to the American people, the vast majority of them would be too dumb, complacent or uncaring to do anything with it. Being an American is too easy. No matter who you vote for or what they do, the average American remains fat and happy. Until something bad happens nobody pays any attention. Maybe global financial meltdown will wake them up.
3 - Lisa Solod Warren
I wrote a piece on this subject on July 11. It's still and always will be true.
4 - Jeremy Gin
GACDKR - I think it's dangerous to conflate a lack of education with lack of ability, and similarly, I think it is very cynical to believe the average American cannot understand public policy better than many members of the House. I strongly believe if we give people the tools to understand the world around them, and imbue them with the belief that they can make a difference, they will surprise us all with their comprehension and engagement. The global financial crisis could be a great opportunity to shake up people's lives and let them see the importance of understanding the world around them.
5 - GACDKR
OK, maybe I was being a bit too cynical. :)
The point though is that most Americans don't suffer from a lack of information, they suffer from a lack of giving a crap about the information.
All the above sources that you cite are excellent places to go to gain in depth knowledge of the issues facing us today.
In order for it to do any good, somebody that isn't already paying attention needs to start.
If we could get a majority of the populace to even occasionally watch the national and international news and maybe every so often read a newspaper article it would be a big improvement.
There are people out there who are interested and they could genuinley benefit from your list of sources.
I am cautiously optimistic that recent events will hit close enough to home that a few more of us will actually make the effort.
Note: I am not actually hoping that things will get worse, just hoping that maybe they are already bad enough to affect a positive change.
6 - Jeremy Gin
GACDKR - I think you're right that people need to care about the information in order for it to be useful, but I also think part of problem is educating people on why they should care. Perhaps it is just my experience, but I find that apathetic people who end up learning about an issue (through force of school or otherwise) end up actually caring much more than they thought they ever would.
A separate problem is finding good information - many people in the US get their news from CNN, Fox News, USA Today, or their local newspaper or news channel. I would argue these news sources are part of the problem. They make people feel like the sound bite is all there is to know about major issues and the important news is whether Palin's kid is really her daughter's, instead of focusing on the importance of funding the future of Medicare. If we could have more quality educational news programs, I do think some people would pay attention, tell their friends, and we could begin to engage and educate many of the people who are apathetic today.
7 - Silas Kain
If we could get a majority of the populace to even occasionally watch the national and international news and maybe every so often read a newspaper article it would be a big improvement.
It would if we could get them to retrieve their news from anyone outside the American mainstream media. One of the best news sources is Al-Jazeera. Perhaps some would say I am un-American for thinking that way. I submit that it is quite THE American thing to do - "doveryai, no proveryai". If you don't know the phrase, look it up, it should be this nation's motto.