My Top Five News Sources

Instagram: Instagram is by far the most used app on my phone.  It is incredibly versatile and I follow a wide variety of profiles, from my close friends, to entrepreneurs, to artists, to politicians, to models, to musicians, to political commentators, to ministries, to organizations on the national and college level.  The diversity of accounts I followed would be unimaginable to my ancestors, who settled in the same place for hundreds of years and only had contact with the people nearby.  In a single day I am fed so much information and inspiration via social media, and it can be difficult at times to sift the truth from the variety of opinions constantly being tossed around.  However, there are various independent journalists that I follow whose content is fairly reliable.  https://www.instagram.com/ 

Upward News Newsletter: I get the Upward News newsletter in my email, and it has been helpful for understanding complex national issues.  Upward News is run by independent journalists, so some of its content is behind a paywall, but even the free version can be helpful for breaking down current events.  Upward News breaks up its stories into small paragraphs similar to Axios, but I like that they are a small media company that is not funded by a billionaire. Upward does have a bit of a right wing bias, but I like that they cover stories that major news outlets may not report on. https://www.upward.news/

Word of Mouth: Word of mouth has always been a method for humans to gather information and I doubt that that will ever change.  Even among younger circles, national and global issues are constantly brought up and debated.  Many people our age are a bit arrogant in believing that their

views are absolute truth, and others who don’t fully understand issues can unintentionally spread false information to their friends.  Although word of mouth isn’t always accurate, it can spark our interest in topics and encourage us to seek the truth in complex issues.  Unlike when we’re in class or at home, when we are in conversation with friends, we typically aren’t trying to prove ourselves to be right.  This opens us up to new perspectives on issues and sparks our curiosity.  

Snapchat: Snapchat is notoriously full of clickbait and exaggerated and false news stories, but I will scan over the titles of news stories and then research the ones that catch my interest.  I wouldn’t trust Snapchat as a source alone, but it serves as a good jumping off point for finding news stories that

interest me so that I can then dive deeper into them from other sources.  Additionally, Snapchat is a means for communicating with my real-life friends, so it can also be used as a method for receiving information via word of mouth.  Admittedly, the things learned via word of mouth over Snapchat’s messaging system are often more reliable than the posts on Snapchat Spotlight.  https://www.snapchat.com/ 

Youtube: Youtube has a variety of reliable news sources, and videos can range in length.  There are bite-sized “Shorts” that gloss over the main facts of a story without going into too much detail. 

Alternatively, if you want to go in depth with your research into a topic, there are infinitely many sources from places all around the globe that can help you to better understand a topic or situation.  It is difficult to seek out unbiased content creators, as many of these individuals feed off of controversy, but you can experience a range of viewpoints and perspectives through the variety of Youtubers.  https://www.youtube.com/