diversifying your information diet
RWL #391
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! You can’t see (trust me, you don’t want to see), but I am doing a happy dance in between typing because as of yesterday all of my juniors have been placed in their summer internships, and for the third year in a row, 100% of them will be paid. This is a big deal because we’re a state school and most of my students graduate with significant debt, so by ensuring they are paid during their summer internship (which is required to be 400 hours), we don’t impose a hardship on them. Plus all the sites either have a proven track record of being great, or I think they will be great if they are new. It’s an exciting year. I will be driving as far north as Bar Harbor, Maine and as far south as New Jersey to do my visits. It’s going to be a lot of windshield time this year! But I love traveling, so this is going to be fun.
You know what else is happy? A happy little bread for dinner? check out this easy recipe if baking your own loaf intimidates you https://joyfoodsunshine.com/easy-no-knead-bread/ . It will help you diversify away from store-bought bread. Boring!
So… I was talking with a family member, and for the upteenth time we were talking about Trump, this time about his legal battles. She was sure he was guilty of what he’s being accused of in Georgia and New York, and the “system” (i.e., Republican judges) were going to let him get off. She’d been reading everything she could on the topic (from the New York Times or Washington Post, I assume), and it was clear there was a bias in the judicial system. This is an intelligent person whom I respect. But this is a conversation we’d had many times before, going back to the Mueller investigation of Trump. Like her, for a large part of that investigation, I was sure Trump was guilty. But it was during that time that I had started to diversify my media inputs away from the large, mainstream media organizations (NYT, WaPo), and started to consume some alternative, more conservative inputs. By the time the Mueller report came out, I wasn’t particularly surprised that the best he could do was suggest Trump had engaged in obstruction.
Like most of the world, I went into the 2016 election fully expecting Clinton to win and Trump to lose. How could Trump possibly win? Who would possibly want him to be our president? But Trump did indeed win and it left me completely baffled. As a former Army officer, I thought about it as an intelligence failure (a failure of G-2). How could my information feed have left me so ignorant of the actual state of the world? Well, my feed was mostly a mix of mainstream media and some libertarian cranks for fun. But I was ignoring the entire conservative and populist media system. While I didn’t embrace the Progressive world view, I was mostly getting my information from Progressive media. After the 2016 election I made a deliberate effort to diversify my media. One of the first things I did was discover National Review, a conservative but not Trumpy, media outlet. And I started listening to NR’s The Editors podcast. At first I found them super annoying because they were so obviously wrong. I think I unsubscribed from the podcast twice. But it was really during the Mueller investigation that I listened to their analysis alongside of the mainstream media feeds I was consuming, and they cast just enough doubt on the investigation that I was angry when nothing came of the investigation (because Mueller didn’t find evidence of collusion), but not completely surprised.
The goal of our information diets (as opposed to our entertainment diets) ought to be to give us an accurate picture of the world so we can make good decisions. We have a responsibility to ourselves as individuals and to our community as citizens to be informed. As individuals, we need accurate information so we can take care of ourselves and our families. As citizens, we have to engage in collective action. We want our decisions to be the best for society. It’s dangerous to become to enamored with one world view, let alone one specific source. The presidential election of 2016 was a wake-up call to me to do a better job of gathering intelligence. It was obvious that, although I was a critic of my class (overeducated, middle class Progressives), I was still mostly informed by their world view. I needed to get more diversity of thought and perspective. So that is what I have been thinking about since. I’ve been grateful for it - I am less often surprised, especially in this odd time - than I would have been had I not made that decision.
This week, I thought I would share my most prominent information sources with you. If you’ve been a long-time reader, you will no doubt find many of these references familiar. I’d be interested in your recommendations to better diversify. Feel free to share in the comments.
As usual, willing good for all of you!
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Reading
My information diet is principally periodicals. What do I read to stay informed?
Wall Street Journal. The WSJ perspective reflects a practical focus on the world. Readers are looking for actionable intelligence, so this fits my goal in a news source. I think the ideology that is reflected in the editorial approach is close to my own world view. There is some risk in that if it's your only source but I balance this by tapping many sources to test my understanding. The WSJ has many newsletters that aggregate news stories. I subscribe to a couple of them daily and weekly. These are my primary access points for the web site - I rarely go to the website and just browse.
The New York Times. UNH recently bought a corporate subscription, so I get free access to the NYT. I get a couple of their news aggregator emails, like I do from the WSJ. I find the NYT to be riven with Progressive activist ideology, so I tend to read each article with skepticism if the topic involves any sort of domestic politics. They do have a great cooking section that I love reading (and it comes as a newsletter!).
Lots of blogs. I read most of them through Feedly, a feed aggregator. I follow a variety of blogs on different topics - economics, HR, and cooking. Also allows me to follow some news aggregators. I particularly like ArtsJournal for cultural stuff. If you find a good aggregator, it can help you quickly sift stuff out. Like my RWL is for some of you hopefully. Specific blogs I recommend:
Marginal Revolution ( https://marginalrevolution.com/ ) - run by two of my former economics professors, Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, it is one of the oldest and most popular economics blogs. It has millions of followers. Cowen is a famous polymath, so he has posts on everything. Tabarrok is more in the spirit of law and economics, but does have some work on innovation and other things.
Scott Sumner ( https://www.econlib.org/author/ssumner/ ) - one of several bloggers at Econlib, Sumner is a monetary economist, but comments on a wide range of topics along with a lot of monetary economics. I’d say he is comprehensible to someone with an MBA-level of business education.
Evil HR Lady ( https://www.evilhrlady.org/ ) - Suzanne Lucas makes HR fun. I know, that’s hard to believe, but it’s true. If you are a manager or interested in management, she’s definitely worth following.
Tynan: LIfe Outside the Box ( https://tynan.com/ ) - I don’t know how I found this guy, but he has a hugely followed blog. More of a lifestyle blog than anything, Tynan marches to the beat of a different drummer. He travels the world constantly on a shoestring, and gives a lot of insight into how one can live a genuine life while having fun.
Budget Byte$ ( https://www.budgetbytes.com/ ) - one of my favorite general-purpose cooking blogs. She develops low-cost, easy-to-follow, delicious recipes.
Love and Oil ( https://www.loveandoliveoil.com/ ) - fantastic for desserts, which is really the whole point of cooking (and maybe life?).
I follow a bunch of Substacks. Two I recommend for news; one for cooking:
The Free Press (
- run by refugee from the NYT Bari Weiss, she has been building this site into a general interest production. She makes a very good podcast as well.
In My Tribe (
) - run by the freelance economist Arnold Kling. I’ve followed Arnold for more than a decade, first as a blogger, then as a Substacker. He has a heterodox perspective on … everything. He’s always interesting.
Anne Byrn: Between the Layers (
) - Cooking blogger Anne Byrn is great. I don’t have a paid subscription, so I don’t always get access to everything, but she is always interesting.
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Watching
Finding a “watch” each week is almost always a challenge. Video is my least used information modality. Like a lot of people, I go down the rabbit hole of videos on Facebook and Instagram, but most of the ones I watch are jiu-jitsu tutorials. I’m also really into animal humor. Not sure why, but my whole family knows it’s true. So I confess I do watch some funny animal videos when Facebook or Insta feeds them to me. I’ve burned out on TED Talks. I still watch them every now and then, but they have come to feel formulaic, ideologically tilted, and a bit too “if you only believe enough, it will happen”-ish.
My go-to sources on YouTube are:
Zeihan on Geopolitics ( https://www.youtube.com/@ZeihanonGeopolitics ). I’ve cited him numerous times because he always has some unique, intelligently framed insight into current events. He provides bite-sized videos (5-10 minutes) almost daily dealing with topics ranging from national security to demographic shifts to the economic trends. Whatever he’s talking about, it’s almost always interesting and clever.
Conor Neill ( https://www.youtube.com/@ConorNeill ). If you’re looking for a motivational talk from a coach who happens to live in Spain, he’s your man. Also usually bite-sized videos of 5-10 minutes. (Hmm.. maybe I should take my own advice here…)
Yeah, that’s about it. Like I said, not much of a video guy.
**
Listening
I listen to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts. TLW regularly walks into a room where I am doing housework and starts talking then gets mad when she realizes I have my headphones in and didn’t hear her. Audio is a great way to optimize downtime like washing the dishes or mopping the floor. Since books are one-offs for the most part, I’ll talk about pods. Here are some of my long-standing listens:
After Hours ( https://harvardafterhours.com/
). A podcast from three Harvard Business School professors. Almost always interesting, despite a definite left-leaning bias. They’re at their best when they are analyzing business trends, but sometimes their cultural chatter is fun, too.
Conversations with Tyler ( https://conversationswithtyler.com/). This is Tyler Cowen’s interview podcast. Tyler is also the author of Marginal Revolution ( cited above in Reading ). Tyler is perhaps one of the world’s great polymaths, so the conversations are wide-ranging, heady, and serious but fun as you engage in Tyler’s infinite curiosity. Sometimes I listen for a few minutes and delete the episode because he’s going down a rabbit hole on something I just don’t care enough about, but 90% of the time he makes esoteric information fascinating. Leans classical liberal (like me, so obviously no bias).
Conversations with Bill Kristol ( https://conversationswithbillkristol.org/). I guess this is actually a video series, but I have only listened to its audio version. Kristol is old-school, Reaganite conservative. He interviews people from across the political spectrum. It’s definitely a political podcast, but it's thoughtful and not at all shouty.
EconTalk ( https://www.econlib.org/econtalk/ ). I have listened to almost every EconTalk episode. I think he started in the mid-2000’s. I discovered the podcast when I found out I was going to George Mason for my PHD and started looking at the faculty (I know, that’s not how you’re supposed to do it, but that’s me). In the early years, the title was appropriate. He has interviewed many of the most influential economists of the late 20th and early 21st century. When I was regularly teaching grad micro and macro, I would often assign his podcasts for class. But in recent years he has slowly drifted toward more philosophical topics about living a good life, which obviously also resonates with me. We differ on topics we are interested in within the philosophical, so I probably delete more now than when he was strictly doing econ, but I still check out every episode. (leans classical liberal, again, like me.)
The Dispatch Podcast ( https://thedispatch.com/podcast/dispatch-podcast/ ). Part of a larger Dispatch universe, the flagship podcast has a mix of interviews and editors’ roundtables. They are intentionally center-right. Smart, main-line conservative-but-open-minded commentary, not at all part of the Trumpy populist bent that is masquerading as conservatism. If you’re in the Progressive media bubble, this one will give you a jolt to wake you up without making you crash your Prius.
Advisory Opinions ( https://thedispatch.com/podcast/advisoryopinions/ ). Part of the Dispatch universe, this is a legal podcast. The hosts keep close watch over the Supreme Court, making SCOTUS rulings both accessible and interesting. They also deal with lower court action, mostly at the federal level, and they talk about law as a career, which I find interesting. They clearly have a huge following in the legal community and regularly have conservative leaning justices on to talk. They lean center-right.
The Reason Roundtable ( https://reason.com/podcasts/the-reason-roundtable/ ). Here’s your dose of crazy libertarian nuttiness. This podcast reminds me why I have decided to stop saying I am a libertarian and instead embrace classical liberal as my political identity. I agree with some of their perspective, but sometimes (sometimes several times in an episode) I violently disagree. They are smart and fun and funny, which is what keeps me coming back. If you’re stuck in the Progressive media bubble, you might want to park your Prius before you listen.
The Editors ( https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/the-editors/ ). This is the Editors roundtable from National Review. Most of the editors are of a Reaganite tradition (thus anti-Trum), but they have a couple of populists who are Trumpy but smart. I struggled to listen to this one at first, but as I noted above, I came to see them as an effective counterweight to the mainstream media, in that they got more things right than the NYT or WaPo did. I’m pro-choice and almost all of the editors are pro-life, so I have a lot of differences with them, but what you want is accuracy, not necessarily agreement.
War on the Rocks ( https://warontherocks.com/category/podcasts/war-on-the-rocks/ ). Excellent analysis and reporting on a wide range of national security and global conflict issues. Seems pretty politically neutral, though definitely pro-Ukrainian, which to me should not be a political issue at all.
Foreign Affairs Interview ( https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview ). From the editor of Foreign Affairs, an excellent, mainstream perspective on foreign affairs (what else?). Leans elitist (Progressive, but smart and not preachy). Guests are always a list of who’s who.
The World Next Week ( https://www.cfr.org/podcasts/world-next-week ). From the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), publisher of Foreign Affairs. A current events podcast focused on foreign affairs. Has a more blatant left bias than the Foreign Affairs Interview, but still good.
Honestly ( https://www.honestlypod.com/ ). Bari Weiss’s podcast (mentioned above in Read for her Free Press newsletter. A self-proclaimed Jewish lesbian liberal who left the NYT in protest of the Progressive culture that had metastasized in the paper. She probably leans classical liberal like me. I like 70% of what she does, love 10%, and delete the other 20%. I mostly like the podcast. It’s a mix of current events and cultural criticism. Worth a listen.
There’s more, but you’ve probably already stopped reading.