Staying informed under assault

where I'm getting my information

17 April 2025

It is pretty bleak out here right now!

it is hard to stay sane in this climate where news media/the internet/the onslaught of images and words we can't fucking escape are being used as a blunt force weapon to terrorize populations.

I'm off socials supposedly! Which means it's very hard for me to keep track of where to get information except by doing it the old school way and typing in URLs manually. Probably, this is a good thing. It's also a very isolating thing! I thought maybe I would compile a list for myself (updated hopefully semiregularly) of places to get updates on what's happening in the world. maybe someone else will find this helpful. please write to me if you have a publication you think I'd appreciate!

Most of these places have newsletters. This is nice for "wow, I don't have to remember to type in the URL" purposes. However, by subscribing to a newsletter, you are essentially replicating the experience of a feed but in a less pleasant & less social environment (your inbox). a word of warning!

Sites are listed in no particular order. The list is "of interest to American Jews" heavy, because I am one!

Sites you may not stumble on by yourself

• New Left Review. Gold fucking standard but unfortunately they post at gold fucking standard cadence (ie, 4 issues / year I think? and my Jan/Feb print issue arrived mid-April lol). Their material is always informative and blessedly does not participate in the fear-generates-clicks economy.
• New Left Review: Sidecar. For when you are desperately wishing the next NLR would come out already. Slightly more in-real-time, slightly more informal work. (Slightly.)
• The Baffler. Really good mostly longform investigative journalism. However I do often finish reading an article and go "that was really cool but also depressing and I can't do anything about it." Though that is not, strictly, within their control
• Waging Nonviolence: bizarrely, this thoroughly lib site has been doing more than any other publication I have seen in terms of public and timely scenario planning, predicting the playbook coming down the pipe, and (correctly) understanding that the US judicial branch is not going to do much about much. good reads to ground you, even if you (unlike their columnists) think private property damage is an a okay strat
• Mondoweiss: the rare publication where I say absolutely sign up for the newsletter, it's worth it. I don't know how the fuck they manage to cover Gaza and Palestine in the way they do. I appreciate their insight and analysis and clear sightedness when so much of the current journalism around Palestine is ignorant or cowardly or both.
• 404 Media: doing an absolutely insane job of breaking stories around the tech dystopia we find ourselves in. however i do think i perhaps have to unsub from their newsletter so the intricate details of palantir's latest horror isn't being projected directly into my brain once per day
• Protean Magazine: a newer site to me but the few pieces I've gotten around to reading have been well researched and informative
• Jewish Currents: probably you know this one

Sites that come w more of a caveat // kitchen sink

• Historical Materialism: specifically the blog section, I haven't read thru their journals yet bc you have to like buy it thru BRILL and i can't tell if it's $152 for a year subscription or for a single issue (tho. either would be outside my price range)? rough out here. like many left blogs, the quality of posts seems to vary wildly and copyediting is rough. but there are cool folks I follow from other places who post to this site so I've been wading thru!
• The New Inquiry: tbh I forgot all about these guys even tho they were a favorite of mine several years back. gotta get back in there
• Endnotes: begging them to come out with a Fucking newsletter so I get notified when they post. Like I just checked their site and they've got a whole new section on Henri Simon up since last I checked. Can a girl get an email about such developments?? (Go to "Dossiers"/"Palabre" for their recent stuff)
• Hearing Things: recently reccomended to me as a music writing platform that doesn't fucking suck. have not investigated thoroughly but am trying to wean myself fully off streaming and anticipate this being useful
• tricky mother nature. we've reached the "just a blog" section. another thinker I would love to have an email-inbox-update sitch for
• Michael Hudson: a good friend follows this dude but i'm bad at video content so I have yet to tune in to a stream lol

sites probably of most interest to jews

• Vashti: UK Independent Jewish journalism
• Der Spekter: a publication of the (new) international Jewish Labour Bund.
• Weird Jewish Digest (if you are Jewish probably): this one often has a really good roundup of misc Jewish stuff that crops up thruout the month, which I would otherwise presumably have to follow the right people on Bluesky to see
• Ancient Jew Review: this isn't remotely a news site it's just got a great name and I consistently enjoy the articles they put out. A treat when you'd rather retreat to watching smart people debate the finer points of class war from several modes of production ago, vs our own

Mainstreamier news I still find helpful

• AP News, NYT, Al Jazeera, +972
• ProPublica for longer term journalism
• would not reccomend my strategy of compulsively checking them this way lies madness