Where do you get your news?

Take the survey, and tell me your vibes!

Look. It’s all Problematic. It’s all Flawed. It’s all Complicated.

What is? The news.

Yeah, this seems right. Photo by Nijwam Swargiary on Unsplash

Not just the news itself (oy), but where you get it. I’m Very Online, and I’ve watched, over the past >10 years now, first the right, and now the left, declare mainstream media invalid. The right went first. Mainstream media was too Woke. It cared too much about people who were not white men. And above all things it did not like Trump.

Now, I see the left doing the same for the opposite reason. Mainstream media is too conservative. The New York Times publishes anti-trans hit pieces that make the lives of already oppressed people harder.* It publishes things that are too soft on Trump. It does not cover enough of the suffering of people in Gaza. TV news is bad. The coverage is too surface, it’s too conservative. The Atlantic platforms anti-trans views too.**

I am a journalist. I will be the first to say that journalists, editors, people in the Media? We are people. We are subject to the same biases and blinders as anyone else. Some of us aren’t nice people. Some of us are bad people. Some of us are cowards. We’re afraid of our bosses, and bend to their whims. We’re subject to capitalism, to the fact that lots of clicks make money, editors ask for things that generate clicks, which means more and more ill-informed op-eds by people who make the phrase “public intellectual” a curse. We’re working on extremely tight timelines and with fewer resources than ever, meaning things fall through the cracks. We are people. We make mistakes. We are scared and stressed, seeing the same world that you’re seeing. (We should, you’re seeing that world because of, er, us). We are no better, but also no worse than anyone in any other profession.

I’m not here to defend journalism as a public enterprise (though I do think it’s a public good, I’m terrified at the number of my colleagues losing their jobs, and the lack of trust, and trustworthiness, of journalism as a whole). I’m here to ask…what do we do?

Because I don’t know.

I’ve been thinking about this ever since I got in a very small conversation with Talia Lavin of The Sword and the Sandwich (which I highly recommend, 11/10, excellent sandwiches, thoughtful takes). Someone was asking on Bluesky where to go for news, because they officially were Done with the NYT, and were previously Done with The Washington Post because of something else they had done in the past.

Talia said:

go subscribe to lots of newsletters from independent journos imo

On the one hand, I agree! Ahem…please subscribe:

On the other…I see this vibe a lot. Talia is not the only person to say it, but this conversation made me think more deeply. Because I’m not sure this is the answer. For three reasons:

1. Newsletters can often scratch the op-ed itch. But most newsletter writers, the vast, vast majority, do not have the resources to find and break actual breaking news. They will tell you what to think about the news.*** So newsletters are great but they are often reacting to news they themselves get from elsewhere. Where are you getting your news?

2. The best newsletters about the news are by good, thoughtful writers. But those writers, again? They are people. And if they are independent? They are people by themselves. With (most of the time) no editors. No fact checkers. No copy editors (count my typos in this I promise there are at least three, I’m hopeless). Again. We are people, and we make mistakes. I cite my sources, and I do my best. But I cringe at the very thought of someone taking my word as gospel. (I’ve got SO many other thoughts on the lionization of journalists as thought leaders but that’s a separate newsletter. The thesis: I hate it.)

3. I agree that we do NOT need to be reading anti-trans people “just asking questions” when those questions are whether or not an entire group of people should exist. That’s not a question. That’s horrible. So many recent issues have come down to things like: Do you want people to literally die? And that’s horrid, and the only correct answer to that is NO. But there are other issues in the world on which there really are multiple points of view. How to best solve problems, how to increase equity. How to tackle climate change. Do you know that you are reading newsletters that give you a broad enough worldview? I’ll be the first to say that I don’t think I am!

So this is where I wonder: What are you reading? Where are you getting your news? I look at Pew studies and IDK who they are sampling.

I want to know.

So I made a SURVEY (insert cheering for data here)!

Tell me where you get your news, and what you think of the news that you get. Share it with your friends! I’d love to get about 100 responses, or even more if the algorithm gods smile.

And sound off in the comments. Where do you get your news? Why do you get it from the places you do? Where do you think some news outlets truly fall down? What would fix them?

This is a palate cleanser. Her name is HH Boots, Purrveyor of Dry Goods. She is perfect.

Where have you been?

I hope it’s outside touching grass, because it turns out spending more time in nature can help people care more about the planet! I mean, we all need another excuse right? Get outside!

Maybe it’s reading about crocodile hairballs. Yes. Crocodiles make hairballs. And apparently you can find them. Get in, losers, we’re gonna go hunt hairballs.

Maybe it’s finding out that mammals don’t always favor big boys. Do you get the feeling that male mammals are always bigger than female mammals? Darwin did. But guess what? Darwin was wrong. Turns out less than half of mammal species have bigger boys. 39% have equal sizes, and 16% have bigger females!

If you needed anything else to add to your obsession with the latest Dune movie, the worm-like caecilian has babies…that BEG THEIR MOTHER FOR MILK. Yes. This limbless reptile makes a milk like substance and exudes it and the babies make cheepy sounds for it. WORM. MILK.

Where have I been?

My feature is out for Sierra Magazine on urban wildlife! I’m so thrilled to see it in print, I’ve been working on it for about a year now. And James Albon did an honestly incredible job with the art!

I…er…won an award! For the best newsbrief from DCSWA! I am so honored (and surprised)! The article I wrote was about how racing hearts can actually increase anxiety behavior in mice. Thank you so much to my fabulous editors at Science News, Ashley Yeager and Emily DeMarco, because let’s be real, it’s editors that take something merely decent and make it shine.

I got to edit this delightful story on why dogs wag their tails (spoiler, we still don’t quite know!)

The talented Emily Graslie is doing a brand new Brain Scoop Book Club and they’re reading MY BOOK! Eeee.

Are you in NYC? I will be! I will be in New York City on April 10! I’m giving a talk at NYU with Entomologist Gwen Pearson on how to write about unloved animals. Come out! In person and online.

Anti-Discourse Actions

Every time I dip a toe onto social media, I’m met with shaming. Not to me personally. Just shame, spurted at everyone. Leave Substack and go to Ghost, because Substack has bad people! If you’re not constantly protesting about the state of the world (on Bluesky or X, naturally) you don’t care! It is your duty to witness, no matter how upset you get! Not only is the whole thing exhausting beyond belief…it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t take action. So I’m stepping off social, and taking action instead.

This week:

1. I’ve taken to reporting the Libs of TikTok newsletter for hate and harassment. I dive into the cesspool and find examples of hate or harassment and report it as a content violation. Sadly (and unsurprisingly) there is no transparency in the process, they won’t tell me if they ever take anything down, or if they even contact Libs of Tiktok to note how horrible it is. But I’m still trying. I average one report per day. I assume after a while Substack is going to get annoyed. But one must try.

2. I’ve been contacting my representatives about causes that are important to me.

3. I volunteered to clean up my fav running trail for Earth Day! It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but somehow never heard about in time. This year I do it!

*As a note: The NYT is one of the only remaining outlets that publishes science news at $1 per word, which is not much. It’s not even really a living wage, but it’s the most I generally can get for news. Heck that’s the most I often get for a FEATURE which takes way more work. Many other big outlets, however, pay less, and there are so few left now that pay anything for freelance that I am struggling to pitch. I’m tired. See Anti-Discourse actions.

**Can we just leave trans people alone FFS. They are PEOPLE. Their gender does not affect you. Let them live their lives! Yeesh.

***This is, by the way, what all op-eds, including this one, do. If you wanna feel weird, take a moment and realize how many things you read that you read deliberately so you know how to feel about something. It’s weird right? It’s WEIRD.