CelloDad has a whole different view of the world than I do. This is not about who we are as people: we broadly agree on a large number of things. (Good thing. I mean, we're married).

I've come to the conclusion it's about where we get the news: he reads mostly "mainstream" news, I read a lot outside that box.

And I have found that if you only get the mainstream, for-profit news, you miss out on a lot. A lot of pretty important things.

Sometimes when we talk about current events he will say things that make me go, "Where have you BEEN?"

One glaring example is the way Biden has been portrayed in the for-profit news, the incessant aggressive scrutiny, while Trump gets a free pass on similar things.

And #Project2025. The for-profit news only started covering it after Taraji P. Henson talked about #Project2025 at the BET awards, in July 2024, and it went viral.

The 900-page manifesto was published in April 2023.

Greg Sargent calls it:

If you're going to harp on Biden's mental fitness for office, a true both-sides approach would treat Trump in a similar way. It's just not happening.

Sargent sketches out the ways the press coverage is lacking.

newrepublic.com/article/185622…

Rebecca Solnit makes a clear case for urgent improvement:

People don't need horse-race coverage, we need to hear what a second Trump term would look like.

"They pursue the appearance of fairness and balance by treating the true and the false, the normal and the outrageous, as equally valid and by normalizing Republicans, especially Donald Trump, whose gibberish gets translated into English and whose past crimes and present-day lies and threats get glossed over."

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

With only two months before the US elections, you can't wait for the for-profit news to re-invent itself.

So the question is: WHO will give us the news the way we need and deserve to get it?

Veracity alone is not enough here. While the Media Bias & Fact Check chart has been a useful guide to ferret out things like outright climate or covid denial, the problems with election coverage right now are less about the facts covered, more about WHAT is covered: the framing.

mediabiasfactcheck.com/

The big question: WHO to trust?
Who will give us the facts and the framing right?

There are lots of writers with worthwhile things to say on Substack, Medium or Daily Kos, but what is their provenance? Whom can you trust?

If you read enough, you learn whom to trust. I've started to pay attention to individual writers. But it's an exhausting path, how many of us have got time and energy for that?

Next best thing: See who is recommended by someone you trust, then read with a critical eye.

Solnit highlights a few larger publications, saying
"the non-profit investigative outfit ProPublica and progressive magazines such as the New Republic and Mother Jones, are doing a lot of the best reporting and commentary."

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

There must be equivalent pubs on the conservative side of the spectrum too. But even the high quality Bloomberg and Financial Times never mention Trump's increasing incoherence.

Nobody prints his word salads verbatim.

If you had a food allergy you become an avid reader of ingredients lists. In this election season you need to be allergic to lies, distortions, and unhelpful framing.
Caveat lector.

That said, here is a short list of where I read:

Pubs:
Pro Publica
The New Republic
The Guardian
The Conversation (scientists writing in plain English)
Heatmap.news (climate focused, has election coverage)

Commenters:
Heather Cox Richardson
Will Bunch, Philadelphia Inquirer (non-profit)
Rebecca Solnit

Here is a good example of journalism that focuses on what's AT STAKE in this election.

McKibben quotes Trump at length on climate (not sure if it's verbatim but it's certainly gibberish).
"But it’s gibberish in the service of something very important and very dangerous: doing all that he can to block the energy transition, in America and around the world."

theguardian.com/us-news/ng-int…

We need to see the stakes spelled out like this, a lot more often.

Here is Heather Digby Parton in Salon (not the mainstream media), using, besides "gibberish", also:

"verbal incontinence"
"blather"
"incomprehensible babble"
- and -
"sounded like a 4th grader giving a book report of a book he didn't read."

But you wouldn't know it if you only read the for-profit mainstream news.

"He has the whole press corps acting as his ghostwriter, sanitizing his babble for the public. "

salon.com/2024/09/06/donald-in…