I dont consume news actively. I stopped watching tv and listening to radio because of ads and news. Both are not great for my mental health. Too stressful, too manipulative.
When something pops up in the fedi, I read it. If it becomes too much, I mute it.
Generally my policy is that if it's news I need to hear, it will find its way to me one way or another. I need not go seeking it out. I will look up something I've heard if I want more info, but I don't read news for its own sake.
The great bulk of news that reaches me being second, third, fourth-hand and beyond means I'm not well-informed about anything. But at least I'm not wasting brain cells on whatever dumb shit <celebrity> did, or what shit <politician> said, or what breakthrough <scientist> made that does not remotely lead to the conclusion the article implies, or some journalist's speculative opinion piece masquerading as news.
If I could just get a dry listing of everything that happened the previous day, only including events of actual consequence like "law passed" or "person died" or "business discontinues product/service", and leaving behind any event that can be effectively retold as "<person> scrawled message on public toilet stall" (like many celebrity and political articles), I'd be satisfied.
Sounds pretty good. I personally enjoy computers and science stuff so that I do read but I get real pissed if the article is loaded with political opinions disguised as science, independent of it is aligned to my view or not.
A series of news weirdos on social media, a critical reading of major news outlets, issue-specific advocacy groups, individual journalists on YouTube etc, and criticism orgs line FAIR
I try to cross-reference things and then look at the critical angles. Public media generally has higher editorial standards for me. I don't trust right-wing sources or the New York Times because they lack editorial standards. State media I don't trust for domestic issues, but while I don't go to Al Jazeera for news about Qatar I trust their coverage of Palestine and France. I try to avoid sources that have an involved stake in the conflict, so something like Ukraine means no RT/Pravda but I'll watch the primary footage coming off Telegram and then compare it to multiple countries' coverage of it. I try to stay dialectical with all of it, so I'm cognizant of the history and material/social angles which create the issue and the biases of those covering it. I'll read a socialist article but I don't want to uncritically agree with news so that's more supplemental unless the media hasn't yet/won't cover it.
Otherwise I listen to a lot of podcasts that are leftist or left-liberal, keep a critical eye on social media coverage, and follow scientific journals/niche science websites that summarise those journal articles without editorialising.
I never read articles for my news. I almost exclusively watch TLDR news on YouTube. Very impartial and intentionally neutral. Just the facts and zero inflammatory language or strong emotions, which is what I hated most about other news outlets.
They sometimes miss the nuance of certain situations but comments will usually provide sufficient insight on anything they miss.
AP, BBC, and NPR for general news. Been on the hunt for some English language news covering the rest of the world and provide an outside look at US news.
Facebook feed of 60+ raptor rescues and wildlife photography groups and Google News search for owl news to post to !superbowl@lemmy.world
Lemmy Top 6 Hours for any breaking news and news about stuff I wouldn't normally look for.
If anything really catches my eye, I'll generally Google it to get at least one other article from a different source to get more info or a second take on the story.
Not OP, but I am in a blue collar job and do the same. I get up at 4am and between brewing then drinking my coffee, eating a small breakfast, using the facilities, and doing general stuff getting ready to go to work, I then leave about 615am and clock in by 7am. I either read or listen to the news the whole time, or in this case, I also replied to your comment.
Not American, so I usually check the front page of CNN to get a general sense of what the media is talking about right now. I get a lot of my political news from Seth Meyers’ and Stephen Colbert’s monologues as well, since the snark is fun.
For local and regional news I use the CBC and my local newspaper.
And I guess Lemmy, but that’s more of a secondary source than a resource I think of when I’m searching for current events.
I prefer listening to stuff in the backgroind over reading so: Electric intifada, empire files, secular talk, Lee camp, and various other left wingers.
NPR, BBC, Al Jazeera, listen to a daily set of audio briefs from those sources. There is a significant bias in all of them, offset by tempering of social media sources.
Mostly RSS for me, incidentally there is a publlic rss api on reddit. You can add .rss to any subreddit URL to get a feed. It's a nice way to get news from there without actually having to use reddit.