I have to admit, I am totally amazed at the coverage of events that have been happening in Japan this past week. I have learned more about nuclear technology, the environment, what it means to millions of Japanese, what it means to the world from a few wonderful news sources. None of which are American.
First I have to compliment BoingBoing.net. Normally a geek based blog side that mostly just re-posts content that is nerd/geek culture centric from across the net. They dive into areas that are very political at times, but I personally think that they have come into a new era of reporting based on the efforts they have put forth to cover the disaster in Japan. The only down side that I can see is that they do not tag or categorize based on that coverage. And because they are a linier blog (new posts on top) some of the great coverage and detailed content can be lost quickly. Of all the sites that I have gone to for info, they are still the first that I head to.
Secondly, and if you know me this should be pretty easy to guess. Twitter. I have found, even when I don’t list it. I am getting wonderfully up to date news. Plus, with a bit of culling you can get a feel for good content vs. crap content. Back in January I decided to drop RSS feeds for twitter and I have not looked back. I get what I want as a nice flow of information and that also includes dialog from non-traditional sources. Plus if their is an error in the information, their will be a lot of chaser tweets with corrections. Now, one thing that I will say about using twitter for news is that it feels more like listening into a crowd, and that can be annoying because you lose context at times of what they are talking about or what is really going on. So use common sense and some caution. That trending topic could be pure B.S.
I think all of this in fascinating, and I respect getting the info from non-standard sources so long as they’re acting in a credible manner. I have seen time and again that if you step outside of the corporate news channels you still get real news, not punditry, or hyperbole commentary. I am not saying it’s all bad. I still read my NYTimes, USAToday, and other news sites. I just think that as each major world event occurs non-traditional media is getting better and better at doing what they do, and I applaud that.
So, to get this ball rolling, what “non-traditional” media outlet do you guys use?
The Register’s nuke plant coverage is possibly the most educational and non-sensationalized I’ve read.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/14/fukushiima_analysis/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/15/fukushima_update_tuesday/