I\u2019m not alone in being burned out on MSNBC. \u00a0The complaints vary from \u201cthere\u2019s too much opinion and not enough news,\u201d to \u201cI\u2019m tired of the shrill, manic delivery of MSNBC hosts like Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, and Melissa Harris-Perry.\u201d Personally, I enjoy hyper-articulate, big-brained people, and I don\u2019t mind opinion rather than straight news. And I admit that I have very much enjoyed some of their commentary.\u00a0That said, I cut cable because I realized I had stopped watching MSNBC. Over the past year, I had gradually started getting all my news online and from more progressive sources. For me, the evening rehash of partisan politics wasn\u2019t getting to the bottom of why the middle class has been, in Elizabeth Warren\u2019s words, \u201chammered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Progressive vs. partisan news analysis<\/b><\/p>\n
So, I started looking for progressive analysis\u2014not partisan analysis but analysis from outside the system, from the left, such as it is. I now go to \u00a0Truthdig<\/a>, Naked Capitalism<\/a>, and Americablog<\/a> for my news and opinion. I read \u00a0Ian Welsh, at ianwelsh.net<\/a> and a variety of other left news commentary like Crooks and Liars,<\/a> Firedoglake<\/a> and Canada\u2019s GlobalResearch<\/a> . I still scan the New York Times<\/i> and Huffington Post to keep up with headline news. But I don\u2019t spend a lot of time there. I do read the Guardian,<\/i> which unlike American corporate media companies has been guaranteed, by its owner, Scott Trust limited, financial and editorial independence in perpetuity.<\/p>\n I\u2019m looking for news and opinion that questions, confronts, and exposes government institutions, politicians in both parties, and corporate entities that are at the source of the economic, environmental, educational, healthcare, military, and infrastructure problems we have today. It\u2019s no mystery that the political\/economic system we have is not working for the majority of Americans. Corporate media is a part of that system so, for me, it\u2019s not really a reliable source for critique and analysis. At times good progressive reporting will leak through, but not often enough. And of course, progressive protests of all kinds against the political\/economic system we have are rarely covered and often suppressed. Especially unwelcome are examples where people have taken their economic lives into their own hands in opposition to corporate or bank interests.<\/p>\n Liberal Democrats are afraid to be critical of Democrats, and especially of Obama, because they believe\u2014against a mountain of evidence to the contrary\u2014that Democrats are the party of ordinary Americans who are fighting the good fight against obstructionist Republicans. That\u2019s the characterization you get on MSNBC. Yet, Democrats and Republicans are \u00a0co-architects of our problems. Barack Obama has backed policies friendly to Wall Street that have led to the worst growth in income inequality in the history of the country.<\/p>\n How elected representatives and government cause income inequality<\/b><\/p>\n