In tumultuous times, especially with social media so full of mis- and disinformation, people often lament about how they don’t even know where to go or how to get news and information they can trust. This is doubly true when social media and news websites are so full of clickbait headlines and outrage in the comments sections that we often don’t even read the stories before we decide what they say and how we feel about them. [We often wonder why news outlets even have comment sections – we lived for centuries without them on our news stories. The answer, of course, is that comments drive viewers and clicks, and viewers and clicks is how our news companies are making money now that we don’t subscribe to them anymore but that’s a topic for another blog post with a little nudge at the end of this one.]

So we here at ZSR want to give you some tips for how you can use our resources to have reliable news sent directly to you each day. This way you can skip the echo-chambers and just read the news without the distractions of comments or over-the-top headlines. If you would like an evidence-based indication of where a publication falls on the type of news or media bias scale, the one we use most often is the Media Bias Chart from Adfontes Media (you can donate to them to keep this invaluable source going).

• Wall Street Journal: Thanks to the WFU School of Business and WFU Student Government, ZSR offers the entire WFU community access to WSJ.com (and this includes the app) but you do need an account to access it. Sign up for your account at http://wsj.com/wakeforestuniversity using your @wfu.edu email address. Once you have that account, you can go to their newsletter page and select the newsletters of most interest to you. They have a daily news one, a Coronavirus one, and not surprisingly a variety of business-related ones.
• The Economist is another publication where ZSR provides you access to the web content for free, but you will need an account to subscribe to their newsletters (upper right corner of the web site is where you manage your account). Once you have the account you can go to their newsletters page (click menu in the top banner and then Newsletters on the far right) and select which you want emailed to you. Note that a couple of these are not available to institutional members, but only to individual paid subscribers.
• The Chronicle of Higher Education, similarly, is provided to you through ZSR but requires an account (free – use your @wfu.edu email address or a @wakehealth.edu address to sign up) to get newsletters sent.
• National Journal: One final source of US political news that might be of interest to our political junkies out there is our access to National Journal’s site and suite of information products. Access is provided via IP address, so you will need to be on VPN or on campus to take full advantage. To subscribe to any of their content you will need an account and you can email our National Journal subscription representative Sarah Hoffman at shofmann@nationaljournal.com to get an account set up for you. Our institutional subscription does have some limits (presentations aren’t included) but does include access to their events section where there are some great speakers and other online opportunities. If you want more info on our subscription to NJ feel free to contact me at tedforrl@wfu.edu

Outside of these options, many new sources offer daily email newsletters that you can subscribe to from their web sites: NPR, PBS Newshour, The Skimm, The Hill, BBC, Bloomberg

And just for good measure here are a couple of reminders about other national news sources that can be accessed affordably, many with academic pricing, and a plug to support journalists by subscribing. Good journalism is not free and if we aren’t supporting them financially with our own subscriptions, then ad revenue will take our place. ProTip: If you keep hitting a paywall on a source, that might be a good indication that that source is important enough to you that paying for a subscription might be warranted.

• Washington Post: If you have an Amazon Prime subscription, you can subscribe to the Washington Post very affordably at $5.99 a month and anyone with an .edu email address can get an academic rate. This gets you full access to the web site and the app.
• New York Times: Anyone with an .edu email address can get academic rates for subscribing to the NY Times. This gets you full access to the web site and the app.
• The Atlantic: The Atlantic has academic rates as well that cost about $2 a month.
• The New Yorker: The New Yorker has academic rates that cost about $4 a month.

If you are aware of academic pricing for other sources, please comment below and we can update this guide!