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Politics and Activism

Three News Sites That Will Make You Smarter

Journalism without the noise.

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Three News Sites That Will Make You Smarter
Vice News HBO

1. Vice

"Your newsfeed is filtered, your news shouldn't be."

-Vice

Vice News produces daily documentary essays consisting of short and long form stories featuring both national and international news. They shed light on some of the most underreported stories around the world through three main media outlets consisting of a nightly newscast on HBO, a website with articles and video content, a Youtube channel, as well as their own TV channel, Vice Land. In addition, Vice is about to launch the fifth season of its documentary series, Vice, on February 24th on HBO.

Several things set Vice apart from your standard nightly news. First, there are no anchors sitting behind a desk, and no talking heads. Instead, Vice approaches the news from an engrossing documentary angle, with interviews and field pieces. Episodes run about a half hour every weeknight and begin with a recap of the day's events, followed by 2-3 fleshed out news stories. Second, Vice prides itself on showing the world as it is, and that means no filters. So, curse words, dead bodies, nudity, and any violence that appear in an episode are not edited out. Third, they go there. Vice won't do a feature news story without actually being there on the ground. Whether it's the chaos of a battle in Syria, an interview with a drug lord, the middle of a police raid in Brazil, or an interview with an ISIS soldier, Vice journalists are there in the thick of it.

Vice's unique style of unfiltered journalism has garnered them two Emmy awards for outstanding informational series and best sound mixing as well as 8 other nominations, two Peabody awards, two GLAAD nominations for outstanding tv journalism, and a nomination from the International Documentary Association for best episodic series.

Vice is, without a doubt, the show you should be watching if you want great, objective, unfiltered, news with journalists who call it like they see it. Check out the trailer for season 5 of their award winning documentary series below.

2. The Atlantic

"Few places remain where scientists, politicians, businesspeople, and writers, where members of the military, the clergy, and academe, where Republicans and Democrats, blacks and whites, the believer and the unbeliever, can regularly hear one another speak. The Atlantic Monthly is one of those places. "

-Cullen Muphy, managing editor of the Atlantic 1994

The Atlanticwas founded in 1857 and originally titled "The Atlantic Monthly." It is an award-winning cultural commentary magazine featuring stories covering everything from politics to education, to war and conflict. The Atlantic regularly publishes articles from new writers, as well as commentary from the world's foremost experts and writers on various issues such as economics and gender issue and much more.

Cullen Muphy, managing editor of The Atlantic in 1994, broke down the purpose of The Atlantic into three goals. First, he said, The Atlantic aims "to provide a considered look at all aspects of our national life; to write, as well, about matters that are not strictly American; to emphasize the big story that lurks, untold, behind the smaller ones that do get told; to write with intelligence and perspective about matters such as marriage, morals, and the mind that are important but aren't necessarily "news"; to shun the bandwagon; and to spread the conclusions of our authors to people who need to know."

The second goal, according to Muphy, is "beauty." "The Atlantic is important because it harbors much of the seed corn of our literature and our spirit. For so many writers of fiction and poetry magazines like this one have been the essential way-station between anonymity and a successful public career. "

Third, Murphy said, "is to serve, in a way, as the nations dining-room table...few places remain where scientists, politicians, businesspeople, and writers, where members of the military, the clergy, and academe, where Republicans and Democrats, blacks and whites, the believer and the unbeliever, can regularly hear one another speak. The Atlantic is one of those places. "

The Atlantic doesn't require a subscription. Thousands of articles are right at your fingertips for free.

3.



"PolitiFact is a project of the Tampa Bay Times and its partners to help you find the truth in politics."

-Politifact

Politifact is a Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking site. It checks the statements of hundreds of politicians from county commissioners to the President, as well as the statements of news anchors, activists, political parties, and talk-show host and rates them on a what they the "Truth-O-Meter," Specifically, the journalists at Politifact look for statements that can be checked. They look at a statement and ask themselves, is this statement verifiable? Is it misleading? Is the statement significant? Will the statement likely be passed on to others? Will a typical person hear the statement and wonder if it's true?

Once a statement is checked it is given a rating of true, mostly true, half true, mostly false, false, or pants on fire. With each statement comes an in-depth analysis of why the statement was given that rating as well as a list of sources for the fact check. You view the scorecard of every individual who is fact-checked and see what percentage of their statements are true, false, and everything in between.

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