Key places I’m getting news from lately. Mostly for staying informed about US federal-level politics.
This has been partially inspired by this recent Techdirt article that I felt really explained pretty well the problems I’ve been seeing with a lot of traditional journalism’s coverage of things going on: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/04/why-techdirt-is-now-a-democracy-blog-whether-we-like-it-or-not/
Basically, traditional journalism has made a lot of major stumbles lately with focusing on the wrong aspects of major policy changes, implications of tech things (especially DOGE), etc. Tech and Law journalism have been doing significantly better at this lately, because they’re much more experienced with understanding the complexities of laws, policies, executive orders, and tech things happening.
Main
The main sources for daily updates and digging into policy details.
WTF Just Happened Today
This is a daily summary of top news. Typically 4 to 6 articles. Mostly focused on US politics.
Techdirt
Tech news blog that’s now a democracy blog whether they like it or not.
WIRED
This is an old-school tech magazine that has been doing some excellent coverage of stuff around politics lately. So good I paid for a subscription, even.
Ars Technica
Very good tech blog that has been doing good coverage of tech policy stuff for years and that has included great coverage of these topics lately.
Under The Desk News
- https://underthedesknews.substack.com/
- https://www.tiktok.com/@underthedesknews
- https://www.youtube.com/@underthedesknews
I first saw V doing 60 second news reports on TikTok and subscribed to her. She’s an independent journalist who has a good understanding of things happening, and is generally pleasant to listen to doing the coverage. She’s recently branched out to other social media places because it’s looking likely that TikTok will stop being available in the US soon.
Other Stuff
Related things, but not my main news sources.
Chop Wood Carry Water
Bit of news in here, but main focus is on approachable actions we can do to help resist fascism.
Notes On The Crises
Newsletter currently focused on “Trump-Musk Treasury Payments Crisis of 2025”.
Erin In The Morning
Primarily covers trans and queer news and legislation.
The Present Age
Parker Molloy’s award-winning media criticism, culture, and politics newsletter. I mostly follow for the media criticism.
Citation Needed
Mostly covers crypto and related tech stuff, but there’s been plenty of current administration stuff around that lately.
