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fuck-hamas-go-israel · 6 months

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Ethnic cleansing? Genocide? Apartheid?

Throwing around these buzzwords to describe the Israel-Hamas war because you’ve seen them on social media doesn’t make you right, and it doesn’t make you an activist.

It makes you ignorant, intellectually dishonest, and lazy for parroting biased talking points with no concept about what these terms actually mean.

What is apartheid?

Well, it was first used to describe the political system in South Africa and today’s Namibia whereby racism was institutionalised. This manner of governance meant that clear racial segregation would occur, in a manner that benefited the white race and would actively oppress those who had darker skin.

This meant that there were white-only spaces, white people would get prioritised when it came to education and jobs, and relationships/marriages between white peoples and coloured people were illegal.

Is Israel objectively an apartheid state? There are no laws that actively favour one group over the other. There is a sizeable population of Israeli Arabs that can thrive in the same way as the Israeli Jews can. There are laws against discrimination on the basis of gender, race/ethnicity, and sexual orientation.

Palestinians from Gaza are allowed to work in Israel through a work permit system. There are about 150,000 Palestinians working in Israel, most of which live in Israel and some come from Gaza/the West Bank. They aren’t denied rights institutionally.

Is it harder to get a job or education in Israel if you’re a Palestinian from Gaza? Sure, because of different governments. It’s like how it’s a lot easier for you to find a job in your own country (in terms of paperwork and bureaucracy) than overseas. But you’re not denied the right to apply.

Of course, if you have a history of violence, a criminal record, or your family has ties to terrorists, then it’ll be a lot harder to get an approved work permit. But that’s not apartheid. That’s common sense, and a regulation practiced by all countries that minimally desire to protect their own population from danger.

Ethnic cleansing and genocide

These two concepts can go hand-in-hand. Ethnic cleansing refers to the mass expulsion or killing of a group of people based on their ethnicity. Similarly, genocide is the purposeful killing of a group of people solely with the intention of annihilating them.

Famous examples? The Holocaust, of course, where the Nazi regime believed in the superiority of the Aryan race and decided to declare genocide on the Jews, Romanis, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, people with “Asian features”, and many many other groups. Anyone who they didn’t think was “pure”.

Their aim was to ensure that the Aryan race propagated without having “impure” blood affecting the bloodlines. They even started a eugenics programme called Lebensborn to ensure that more pure Aryan babies were born.

More recent examples? The Rwandan genocide where the Hutus attempted to wipe out the Tutsis on the basis of ethnicity. They mandated that Tutsis mention their ethnicity on state-issued ID cards in order for the Hutus in power to be able to identify them and then kill them.

Or the Yazidi genocide which happened so recently, in which ISIL killed, raped, and sent thousands of Yazidis into conversion camps on the basis of their ethnicity. They also took Yazidi women as sex slaves and raped and tortured them.

Or the Rohingya Muslims in the Rakhine State in Myanmar, and how there was a mass killing and expulsion of them from the country, forcing them to flee to Bangladesh to take refuge, crating the world’s largest refugee camp.

Or how ISIS killed thousands of people from Christian groups in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Libya because of their faith, leading the US, EU, and UK to label this as religious genocide and condemned their actions.

Has Israel been practicing ethnic cleansing and genocide on Palestinians all these years?

Well, the birth rate of the Palestinian population in Gaza, the West Bank, and in Israel has been steadily increasing all these years.

So, no. No ethnic cleansing, no genocide. They are free to have as many children as they desire.

The UN Genocide Convention

The United Nations has 5 actions that constitute genocide.

1. Killing members of a target group

Israel is targeting Hamas officials with the aim of wiping out the terrorist group and ensuring that such a deadly attack on Israeli soil doesn’t happen again. I suppose you could call it genocide against Hamas, but they’re killing Hamas because they’re terrorists, not because they’re Palestinian. Shouldn’t everyone believe in genocide against terrorists?

But look at Black Saturday. Look at Hamas’ rhetoric. They repeatedly call for the annihilation of Israel and genocide of Jews. When will the media start believing what they say, word for word, instead of trying to spin it into “hmm maybe they want to kill all the Jews because they’re freedom fighters!”

War has collateral damage. Of course the innocent civilians don’t deserve to suffer just because of the actions of their government, but there have been warnings given to the Palestinian civilians prior to Israel striking the areas. There are consequences of attacking a country first, and then having that country attack you back.

2. Causing people of the group serious bodily or mental harm

The UN refers to sexual violence as the prime example of non-fatal harm.

Sexual violence has occurred. Hamas have kidnapped and raped women and even paraded the bodies of half-naked women around. But I f Israel had done the same, it’ll be the first thing appearing on everyone’s BBC push notifications (without even being confirmed as true).

3. Imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group

Many people refer to the blockade that Israel imposed around the Gaza Strip as an example of this.

This blockade was imposed by both Israel and Egypt in 2005. Its aim was to prevent smuggling of weapons into Gaza, and isolate the reign of Hamas to the region. This was to ensure the safety of Israel and Egypt.

Did this blockade pose serious challenges to the Gazan civilians? Of course. But that’s a consequence of having a terrorist government. If you have a terrorist group running your country, don’t be surprised if neighbouring countries are extra careful about who or what they allow in or out of the borders.

Many authorities from other Arab nations have also expressed approval of Egypt’s border restrictions, and even encouraged Egypt to flood the terror tunnels that Hamas has dug under the city. As a side note, other Arab nations have not historically been very kind or welcoming to Palestinians. Syria has killed over 4000 Palestinians, and many Arab countries are now refusing any refuge for Palestinians. But no one cares about that because it doesn’t make Israel look bad. All they do now is use the images of dead Palestinians under the hands of Syria and reuse them to propagate fake news.

The blockade has been labelled as a human rights violation because of collective punishment. Many humanitarian organisations believe that the blockade has caused the Palestinian civilians disproportionate harm.

Contrary to popular belief, Israel isn’t disallowing humanitarian aid from coming through the borders. Fuel, food, hygiene products, clothes, and shoes have been coming through the borders regularly for years. The Gaza Strip also has electricity and internet access and water.

Do all these items reach the Palestinian civilians? Well, there has been evidence that Hamas has been intercepting a lot of the supplies sent by humanitarian groups. This is not surprising since the UNRWA tweeted that Hamas has stole fuel from hospitals in Gaza in order to launch more rockets at Israel (but quickly deleted it after realising that it goes against their agenda to paint Hamas in a bad light.) In addition, the returned hostages have mentioned that there are many aid supplies hidden in the terror tunnels by Hamas. Instead of giving them to the civilians, they are hoarding it for themselves.

There has also been video evidence that some people are reselling these aid items in stores at exorbitant prices in order to turn profits. This has been well-documented for the last 10 years.

Is blockading the region to mitigate terrorism a disproportionate response? Well, it’s like asking if heightened security and stricter border control at airports is a disproportionate response after 9/11. Is being cautious and worrying about the security of your country an irrational reaction to the constant threat of terrorism?

4. Preventing births

Gaza’s population growth rate per annum is about 1.99%, which is the 39th highest in the world! Their population is allowed to propagate freely.

Israel isn’t preventing births of Palestinian babies.

5. Forcibly transferring children out of the group

No, Israel hasn’t been taking Palestinian children and forcing them to convert/keeping young Palestinian girls as sex slaves. Like I said, if this was truly happening, all the news outlets would be so quick to publish the story before verifying it.

Can we trust the UN Genocide standards?

The UN is known for corruption and have been exploiting the Palestinian people by selling them the humanitarian supplies instead of distributing them for free, which they should because these supplies literally are donations.

The UN also has differing standards of what they would label as genocide. For example, they refuse to call what China is doing to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang as genocide, even though the situation does fit many of their own criteria.

Hence, to all of you out there overusing these terms without knowing what they mean, make up your own mind about things. No one can force you to believe anything and no one can force you to change your mind.

But at the very least, do your due diligence and educate yourself before spouting tired buzzwords. Repeating misinformation doesn’t help anyone and can be very harmful.

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textualdeviance · 7 years

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Re: that last reblog about false neutrality: YES. Balance is bias. Facts always lean toward one side or another, and any news org pretending otherwise is gaslighting you.

My J school taught exactly that principle, thank goodness. Unfortunately, a lot of reporters--particularly in TV news--don’t have journo backgrounds that include this kind of training, nor have they had proper training in copy editing and fact checking. Way too many of them are just talking heads with a generic communications degree, if that. Used to be everyone in news had either a J degree or rigorous training, but once the big corps with their profit-driven agendas started swallowing up local radio and newspapers and running big cable news nets, journalistic integrity got thrown out the window in favor of the 1980s version of clickbait.

Because these supposed reporters are not fully educated, it’s assumed that they don’t have the skill and wisdom to make a judgment call about what facts are and who is most able to provide them. Thus the practice of getting quotes from all sides of a story, and then laying them out with (supposedly) equal weight, and letting the audience decide who’s right. Problem is: The audience mostly isn’t qualified to make those judgments, either, plus they look up to reporters as people who know more than they do, and thus they expect that the news will reliably tell them the truth. So if some jackass on Fox includes quotes from a Flat Earther in every story about NASA, they assume that reporter is telling them that the Flat Earth Society is every bit as qualified to tell the truth about Mars as an astrophysicist from the JPL. Adding confusion: The editorial and “debate” segments/shows that don’t frame themselves as different from straight news reporting. Used to be people knew that commentary and opinion pages weren’t the same thing as reported news. Now no-one has any damned idea what’s actual news and what’s just someone bloviating or a couple of people yelling at each other for the WWE version of reporting. After about 30 years of this, millions of people are no longer able to determine who’s a properly qualified expert and who’s completely full of shit, and an entire generation of news consumers has no fucking idea what’s real and what’s not.

Fast forward to the intarweebs age, and now news has been fully democratized. In many ways, this is a good thing. If everyone has access to a wide-distribution platform, it’s harder for gatekeepers with bad agendas to suppress a story that makes someone in power look bad. (This is part of why people who love propaganda want to kill net neutrality--if you can make it impossible for the plebes to load the pages with real news, it’s easier to control that flow.) Unfortunately, this also means that every dipshit with an axe to grind can call themselves a reporter and insist that their stories be taken just as seriously as ones from actual journalists. See Alex Jones. See Breitbart. See Young Turks. See U.S. Uncut. See the myriad sites run by homeopaths and other “natural” scammers passing off anti-science woo barf as legitimate information. Bald-faced lies are now being framed as fact, and far too many people have absolutely no clue they’re being lied to.

So how do we fix this? Well, it’s actually pretty easy:

1. Support your local newspapers and public radio.

As long as your local paper isn’t run by a massive conglomerate like NewsCorp or Gannett, chances are good it’s doing some decent reporting. If your local big metro paper is shit, look for ones from smaller cities nearby. Many of the weeklies are doing pretty good, too--even the ones that are part of the Village Voice parent company. Figure out who owns it, who the EiC is and what their background is, and then pay especially close attention to stories written by staff reporters (rather than wire services, freelancers, or stringers.)

Subscribe, if you can, or at least pay for a paper copy. If you prefer to get your news in digital form, turn off ad blockers when you go visit the paper’s site, so they can keep making enough money to pay their reporters and editors.

Any local radio that’s affiliated with NPR is probably a good bet, too, especially ones run by colleges. Donate to them if you can. Ignore virtually all talk radio. It’s an absolute cesspool these days.

2. Support the best of the national/international news orgs.

While they do have a slight liberal lean these days, the WaPo is one of the best national-news sources out there. I’d trust them over almost anyone else, including the NYT. For now, NPR is a close second, but whether that lasts depends on how much Trump fucks with it. For wire stories, take anything by the AP with a grain of salt, and pay closer attention to anything from Reuters, the BBC and Al-Jazeera. Many international papers also have good reporting. If you can read another language, look for stories from Der Spiegel, Le Monde, etc. If you’re looking at the U.K., be aware that they have some absolute shit there--ignore anything from the Sun, the Daily Mail or the Telegraph--but they have some good ones, too. The Guardian is particularly reliable. In Canada, the Toronto Star and Vancouver Sun are pretty good.

Some magazines are also good, and because of their longer lead times, you can often get far more in-depth reporting than the constant flow of glorified headlines you see elsewhere. Many of these have a strong East Coast flavor/bias, so keep that in mind, but for the most part, stuff from the Atlantic or the New Yorker is reliable. Ignore the big weeklies, though: Time, Newsweek, etc. They’re every bit as useless as anything else you’d find in a dentist’s waiting room.

3. Ditch ANYTHING that doesn’t do its own reporting, or doesn’t pay reporters.

News aggregators are the scourge of journalism. If the site you’re on is simply repackaging or doing commentary on stories that someone else reported, stop going there. This doesn’t include blogs or other places that are specifically designed for doing news commentary--and are upfront about that--more just the places that link to someone else’s story in the first graf, then have three more grafs paraphrasing or spinning what was in that story, and calling it reporting. That is not reporting. At all. If the person on the byline didn’t actually talk to any of the sources in the story, it’s not real news. It’s clickbait.

Likewise, some places may have a bit of original reporting, but because they don’t pay their freelancers, they should be ignored. HuffPo is particularly bad about this. They’ve even gone so far as to try to justify this by saying that paying their writers would introduce bias. HOLY CRAP NO.

4. Do your own leg work.

The ramp-up for this can be painful, but it pays off down the road. When trying to decide whether a given news org is worth your time, do some research on it. Find out who owns it, how long it’s been around, etc. Get some background on the EiC. Read some of its editorials to get a feel for where they lean. Look at some of its staff-written stories and see who they use for sources and how they frame quotes. See if they follow up any dodgy quotes with other sources refuting those. If a source seems questionable to you, go look them up, too. Could be that the head of Scientists for a Better World is actually some anti-vax crank who lost his medical license and is now operating a cult out of a strip mall. Some of the worst groups out there have names that sound legit--they do that on purpose to sow confusion. Make note of the icky ones, and avoid any news orgs that use them as sources. Also, see how often they run stories that read like slightly edited press releases. If they’re way too excited about some company or product or person, they may have literally just copypasted from docs they got sent by some PR hack. While press releases are useful for getting quotes or initial information, they have to be followed with real reporting.

Also: Don’t rely on your friends or family to give you reliable news (unless they happen to be journalists!) I’m sure Aunt Sadie is a wonderful person and means well, but if she insists that the article she read about how vaccines are dangerous is the gospel truth, chances are good you shouldn’t trust most of what she says about other news. There are a fuckton of well-meaning-but-misinformed people out there, and while they may be good sources for news about your cousin’s graduation, they shouldn’t be relied on to tell you a damned thing about what’s going on in Syria or whether the county water board has been taken over by corporate stooges.

(This caveat includes me, BTW. If all this seems like horseshit to you, feel free to look me up, too. I don’t expect my words to be taken on face value, and I’m happy to be transparent about my background and perspective.)

After a few weeks of doing this kind of investigative digging, you should be able to determine which of your potential news sources is going to be the most reliable, and you can then follow them on Twitter or FB or--gasp!--even buy their dead-tree editions if they have them, and rest assured that what gets in your face is going to be good information. Try to have at least two or three that you regularly follow. Getting a variety of angles is always a good thing, and some places are especially good for one subject or region, but not necessarily useful for other things.

The only way we get better, more reliable news is to pay for what’s already good, and stop giving money and clicks to the bad stuff. All news has to rely on revenue these days, so money alone doesn’t make a news source bad, but if you dry up the cash flow for the shitty stuff and start dumping it on the good stuff, we can eventually get news media back on track. To get good news, you have to be a good news consumer. Working for responsible journalism is a job for all of us.

#journalism #media #fake news #media literacy

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asteriskes-blog · 7 years

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The Brazen White House: Unfinished

When Josh first said it to me I found it an amusing enough proposition, but of course I didn’t take it seriously. Took it as one of these new conspiracy theories born of the profoundly profuse tin-foil-hat literature of the deep furnaces of the internet in this strange stage of the information age.

I am not so educated as to dismiss completely many notions, but this I felt was the most contrived of abstractions. One though which leant itself to several burgeoning new narratives for the way things are. To get to the point, he told me (and this of course was around the time of the election) that Trump was indeed the representative of the old diety Kek, the disruptive, mischievous bringer of light out from the primordial chaos and darkness while Clinton and her ilk were representatives of Moloch a kingly diety associated with child sacrifice.

Could you have expected me to take it seriously? Even he was, of course, half joking. Though he had followed religiously all of the ‘evidence’ which appeared in the so-called ‘pizza-gate scandal’ and, I believe, had some serious shred of belief in him regarding that all, talking for hours on end of everything which could lead someone to that conclusion. Of course I knew how he saw us- nodding our heads pretending we found it all somewhat interesting and credible. It was interesting, but I knew he saw me as putting my hands over my eyes in folly. Maybe thats why I didn’t protest, because I knew it was a position you couldn’t argue over, especially when it was common sense versus literal pages upon pages of research, verifiable or not, I simply did not posses the time to go in and adequately refute the man, let alone the movement.

But that was a while ago, Its been nearly a year since trumps been in office. Clinton appears as only a vague and awkward memory, and the pizza gate and all of that a strange story to tell our (hopefully) bewildered grandchildren.

So of course when it reappeared the first time under the banner of some alternative media site (which indeed Marc Zuckerberg had put on his blacklist) , I scrolled past it without paying it any mind. But again and again it kept popping up- this todo about Moloch and the White House. It struck me, after the first few times as a bit of an exhausting thing to drag something like that up nearly a year later; conjectured these sites must have been struggling after such a gravy-train of an election. Alex Jones of course was there ranting and raving about it and I really began to muse to myself about the genesis and spread of trends in fake news.

Then one morning, this was about a week and a half ago, I woke up checked my news sites and saw the story on none other but Al-Jazeera. In disbelief I smiled, stared at the headline a solid minute. The photo for the article was actually two photos. On the left was the commander and chief, caught, as he always is, making a ridiculous expression. His mouth was actually closed this time, but his eyes were wide as if to say “Holy cow can you believe this?”. The picture on the right was a golden statue of what looked like a minotaur, hands outstretched. The Headline read: “President Trump ‘as clueless as anyone’ over ancient diety white house statue.’

My first thought, of course, was “Hell maybe this Qatar blockade business wasn’t so bad an idea after all.” Then Al-Bawaba ran it, then Haaretz, and with the absolute social media onslaught over the the British and American papers not running it, and Haaretz being forced to take the article down the next day, the BBC, a mere two days later, were all but forced to put something out.

Apparently Trump had been wandering around the White House unattended and found a secret passageway leading deep underground.

“I tell you its amazing the architecture this country can produce, I must have walked ten minutes down there.”

Fearing becoming lost, or of stumbling down the treacherous steps he called for his son Eric, who happened to be in the White House, to help lead him. As they descended a dreadful smell came up to meet them. Clutching their noses they pressed forward. Eventually they found themselves in a massive stone room opposite an alter in front of which sat the brazen statue in question.

Immediately the Commander and Chief took out his cell phone to snap a picture of his son smiling and pointing up at the bull, tweeting it with the caption “Weird stuff in the White House. Why didn’t I know? Will be having a talk with my staff later!”

The tweet, some sources calculated, was taken offline in less than three minute, but of course this was more than time enough and in less than an hour, all but the very epidermis of the internet was aflame with speculation.

But of course we were, it seemed, as clueless as the President. Speculation was all we had, wild speculation, speculations I felt would be far more absurd than the truth, whatever it would be. In this the speculation aided in the cover up. Anyone who was interested, or who pushed was immediately grouped by the powers at be with the most ridiculous of conspiracy theorists. The whole thing was labeled “fake news” by all the popular outlets, who made sure not to give the story more than a passing remark, or even to acknowledge the photo. Most eerily of all was two days of total silence from the president’s twitter, a fact which aroused the suspicion even of the least suspecting.

Sunday was the day the President descended into the depths, Wednesday was the day he, so to speak, re-emerged through the recently fired Steve Bannon. For me, and for countless other Americans Wednesday’s article was the first Breitbart article we had ever bothered to read. The source, of course, lead to the disbelief of many, but it truly was one of the most remarkable pieces of literature I’d ever come across, written by Bannon himself in what must have been the profoundest of moods in which he’d ever found himself.

“I’m typing this from my phone, I don’t know if it will get out though, I can’t help but suspect that these establishment bastards have already ramsacked Breitbart headquarters. I can’t even imagine what justification they’ve given my employees, if they know whats good for them, in the name of the second amendment, they’ll show some caution.

This isn’t going to read like a normal article. Because these aren’t normal times. Trump

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jamiekturner · 7 years

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Best News Apps for iPhone and iPad

The tech industry has well infiltrated into the publication era.

Google has developed an open source channel for publishers together with Twitter, Facebook has launched the Instant Articles, and Apple owns News app for iPhone.

At the same time Yahoo, AOL, LinkedIn and Flipboard have proceeded to update their news applications for iphone, also showing huge interest worldwide news feed app.

So, below you can find the best news apps regardless of if you are a hard iPhone news applications junkie or only a casual lover of world affairs.

That said, below are our top picks for the best news apps, whether you’re a die-hard news junkie or merely a casual purveyor of world affairs.

BuzzFeed

BuzzFeed took the world by storm with its viral listicals and other fun content. The app consolidates everything in one place, while allowing to customize the types of articles you see to suit your tastes.

You can also browse the menu to view quizzes, what’s trending, or news if you want to further hone your search.

SmartNews

SmartNews brings you trending stories and categorizes them based on the subject. It’s clutter-free, easy to browse through, and good at digging up fresh content that you’ll actually want to read.

Partners include NBC News, Medium, USA Today, TIME, Bleacher Report, Quartz, VICE, Reuters, AP, Perez Hilton, and more.

Google News and Weather

It isn’t Google Reader, but Google News & Weather offers a wide variation of news stories from multiple publishers. Alongside the headlines and local weather, users can browse “Suggested for you,” an area for news stories catered to your most recent searches.

Users are also able to highlight an individual topic, such as technology, for all of the current news.

Feedly

The death of Google Reader was a tragedy for a lot of avid users, but for Feedly, it was a blessing. The news aggregator noticed a huge wave of new users within weeks, and has since improved its mobile service to make it easier to save, read, and bookmark articles.

You can select multiple publications from Feedly’s search board, sort them into topics, and save articles for later viewing with bookmarks.

Flipboard

Flipboard created a new type of reading experience on mobile, one focused on engaging the reader with the most exciting stories of the day and a magazine-style aesthetic.

Hundreds of publications are now available on the news reader, and Flipboard offers a generous amount of topics, whether you’re into technology as a whole or the Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Yahoo News Digest

Yahoo’s $30 million acquisition of Summly was all about redesigning News Digest, and the finished product is a marvel. It offers 10 of the top stories in your region, capitalizing on Summly’s artificial intelligence technology as it does to present the information in a tidy package.

The news changes every few hours, too, giving you important updates throughout the day.

Reddit finally launched an official Reddit app last year, and the app quickly became one of the best ways to experience Reddit on Android and iOS.

Reddit is a great way to keep up with the latest news through the various subreddits — Android news would be submitted to /r/Android, for instance — and users upvote popular content and comment on it.

Apple News

Apple News comes pre-loaded on every iOS device, and sadly, like most of Apple’s apps, it remains unavailable on Android platforms. The News app places a big focus on images and quick loading videos, and publications such as The New York Times and National Geographic have partnered with the company to make their content readily available.

Users are also able to follow trends or individual topics, ranging from vague areas like politics to niche topics such as HTML5.

AOL Mail, News and Video

AOL is still kicking, even if it is now a small segment in Verizon’s media empire. Thankfully, since the acquisition, there have been regular updates to its Mail, Weather, and News app.

The app even offers a dedicated news feed lined with local weather, topical news, and video sections.

News Republic

News Republic offers a collection of articles based on trends and personal preferences, letting you see what everyone else is reading and what you’re interested in.

For users with limited time, the service also offers a digest, so you can casually check the headlines without having to delve into the full article.

Pocket

Ever read an interesting headline, but don’t have time to dive into the story? Pocket is the perfect app for you. The popular app lets you store news for later reading, and offers a simple user interface that lets find the articles you saved, bookmark them, and archive others you want to come back to.

Pocket recently launched a Recommended feature, too, which lets you check what friends and other users have saved.

AP Mobile

Associated Press covers news from all around the world, with a huge team of dedicated reporters that focus on all manners of topics and trends.

The service’s companion app comes free of the usual glist and glam that other news services offer, but for people who enjoy getting the facts and little else, it’s a useful resource.

BBC News

The BBC is another worldwide news organization dedicated to keeping you up to date on the latest topics and news stories.

Unlike AP Mobile, however, the BBC News app offers a bit more fun with its articles, along with a live-streaming news channel that’s baked directly into its app.

CNN App

CNN was the first 24-hour cable news channel, and its official app essentially functions as a condensed version of the site. It offers a wide variety of articles, primarily with a on U.S. audiences.

Video also plays a larger part on CNN than it does on the BBC, so for fans of video news, this is the app for you.

Al Jazeera English

Al Jazeera was the first 24-hour news channel to cover the Middle East, and has become one of the most popular and established publications in the region.

Thankfully, it also reports on news from around the globe, whether talking the effects of El Niño in California or the education rate of kids in rural Sudan.

Inoreader

This app is another news aggregator that brings all the news to you, instead of you having to check every news site individually. It allows you to save web pages for later viewing and search for content you’ve liked in the past.

You can subscribe to news feeds covering technology, business, politics, and more.

You can even subscribe to your favorite YouTube channels. It’s compatible with Android or iOS, and there’s a version designed especially for iPads.

InstaPaper

If you want to save news for later, Instapaper is for you. You can have news with you wherever you go, even if you’re offline. One of the best features is that it gives you an uncluttered version of the news article, just like when you switch your browser to reader mode.

With one tap, you can save your news and read it later, in an uncluttered format, and without having to be connected to the internet.

theScore

If you’re into sports — whether it’s the NFL, NBA, NHL, Premier League Soccer, you name it — it’s in this app. It offers rich information, including detailed stats that you don’t get on many apps. If you want real time scores with an app that specializes in sports, then this app is a must.

If you’re an iOS user, the best part is that there’s an Apple Watch app, too.

Univision

For Spanish speakers, the Univision app is a great way to get news in your native language. It not only offers news, but also TV shows, entertainment, a TV guide, and horoscopes.

From celebrity news to TV shows, this is a great news app for Spanish speakers.

NPR News Radio

If you would rather listen to your news on the go, instead of reading, then the NPR News Radio app is a consistently good performer when it comes to user ratings.

Follow, and listen, to local and national news on your smartphone. You can create a playlist of your favorites, or listen to public radio podcasts.

The app also lets you find stations based on your current location using your smartphone’s GPS.

News360

This app is one of the most well-known news aggregation apps for a reason. The app looks great, it’s very straightforward, and offers rich content. It’s similar to Flipboard, in that you search for your favorite topics, or specific news sites, and make a list.

Not only does it offer an iMessage app, but also an Apple Watch app for iOS users. You can also connect the app to your Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus to share the news, and it supports Pocket, Instapaper, and Evernote integration. It also allows you to save stories, so you can read them later. This is definitely a must-have app when it comes to news.

Digg

Zite’s unique selling point is that over time, it learns more about your interests and starts to recommend news stories to you based on what it thinks you’ll want to read. While recommending content, the app aims to help you discover new sources and fresh opinions.

The app is well designed and in theory, it takes away some of the work you have to do while searching for the best sources of news online.

Zinio

Magazines and newspapers still play a pivotal role in news reporting. They operate on a different news cycle to the Web and often facilitate investigate reporting and long-form journalism that then sets the agenda online.

Many readers still enjoy the nuances of magazine design too; the slim columns of copy, eye-catching headlines and stunning photography. Zinio brings a digital version of these well-loved publications, including The Economist, New Scientist and The New Yorker under one roof.

Reeder 2

The first question I always get asked after doing a roundup like this is which app I personally use. I’ve been using Reeder 2 almost as long as I can remember using an iPhone.

What I love about Reeder 2 is that I can choose how and what I want to read. It also integrates with all the major RSS services such as Feedly, Feed Wrangler (which is what I use, for those wondering), Feedbin and more. If you don’t use an RSS service, you can also add feeds manually by just entering the website.

Reeder 2 provides a clean, streamlined, standard feed that’s easy to use and understand. If you want all your news in straight chronological order with zero frills, Reeder 2 is the quickest way to work through and triage tons of RSS feeds.

NetNewsWire

The very first RSS app I ever used on my iPhone was NetNewsWire. I was overjoyed when it recently received a complete overhaul. What makes it unique from other news and RSS apps are the unique ways to sort and view your content.

For example, the favorites view is a great way to filter out sites that post a lot of noise so your feed isn’t congested by stories you don’t particularly care as much about. I love using NetNewsWire when I only have a few minutes to catch up and only want to see content from my favorite sites.

Enabling the Smart Site Refresh feature in settings makes the experience even better. This way, only your favorite sites auto-refresh on their own. Everything else is only updated when you manually pull to refresh.

Newsify

Simple text feeds for news aren’t for everyone and if you fit in that category, Newsify is a much more visual way to browse and read news. I like to think of it as a happy medium between Flipboard and standard RSS apps.

Anyone who enjoys the idea of viewing news as a collection of magazine clippings will love Newsify. It’s much more media-centric than many other standard news and RSS apps. When I have time to sit and randomly browse news feeds, I’ve found Newsify to be a great way to do it.

Unread

If I sit down with my iPad, I probably want to do some long-form reading or some serious catch up. For these kinds of reading sessions, I almost always turn to Unread.

I just can’t help but love the way every little detail of Unread is well-thought-out. There are seven gorgeous themes to choose from and the entire interface can be navigated with nothing but gestures. In a single swipe and tap, I can change how articles are grouped or sorted, or I can mark everything in that category as read.

USA Today

The recently-updated USA Today app seems designed to replicate the feeling, if not the exact experience, of reading the paper newspaper. The app opens with a scrollable list of top stories, but all the familiar sections from the paper are easily accessible (and color coded!) via a button in the corner.

To make reading on the iPhone’s smaller screen easier, the sections are subdivided multiple times, which insures that you will see the content you want most. The one glaring omission is support for the landscape orientation, which is something they will hopefully correct in the next update.

The app could also be speedier, but its subtle lag is explained by the fact that it formats all the articles for easy reading before displaying them.

NYTimes

The New York Times is widely considered one of the most prestigious names in news, which makes its iPhone app a must-have. Non-subscribers are limited to viewing “top news,” but that covers a wide range and the rest of the app’s functionality, including push notifications, is intact.

Articles are well-formatted and load quickly, but the use of an animated banner ad in the bottom of the screen (even for subscribers and occasionally in full screen mode) detracts from the reading experience.

The Guardian

The Guardian offers more functionality than others in its class, with no hidden costs! Users can view all sections of the paper, select sections for offline use, send articles to Twitter, Facebook, or email, and even search articles.

The Guardian app has a unique tagging feature that puts a tag icon on articles that, when pushed, displays related subjects.

Newstream

Newstream allows users to add feeds from the web, Twitter, and/or Tumblr and then formats each one to resemble a traditional newspaper. The app’s presentation is nearly flawless and makes browsing feeds more attractive.

Newstream, however, does not include any preloaded content or even suggested content and does not support the landscape orientation.

NewsMix

NewsMix is another news aggregation app that provides some sections upon launch but requires users to create an account or connect an existing account to add more content. Much of the content seems to come from Twitter; in fact, a few sources are Twitter lists.

Flud News

Flud is essentially a social RSS reader. Unlike other news aggregators, Flud doesn’t offer curated content categories in its list of sources, although it does support adding sources from Google Reader, Twitter, or Facebook in addition to listed sources or searched-for websites.

Flud’s real draw is its ability to connect with other users and “flud” (or share) content you like. If that is something that appeals to you, Flud will be your new favorite; if not, you’re better off with other apps.

Press Reader

Press Reader is an app designed for anyone who misses reading their news in print. The app provide users is a portal for access to over 2,100 newspapers from all over the world via a per-issue or monthly subscription model (after a seven issue free tryout).

Although PressReader includes top stories formatted for the iPhone, it is really only likely to be useful for those willing to pay.

SkyGrid

SkyGrid’s falls somewhere between the traditional news app and a content aggregator like Flipboard. The app includes top news from multiple categories and sections with categories like those you would find in a newspaper, but also allows users to add their own content. The photo-heavy grid interface is attractive, but slow to load.

Reuters

The Reuters app is full of unbiased information from around the world. If you’re looking for great news coverage that many other news organizations use as their source – look no further than this fantastically laid out app.

Discover stories that explore a wide range of topics, including Politics, Opinion, and Oddly Enough.Create and edit your personal watchlist of news tickers. Read online or save stories and read them later offline.

Fox News

For a conservative take on the news, the free Fox News app is a great choice. Not only does the app include articles from the Fox News website, it’s also packed with video from both Fox News and Fox Business. Watch either channel live in the app, along with exclusive content that can only be seen inside the app.

As with many of these apps, you’ll also get breaking news alerts and be able to share articles via social media.

LA Times

This free app from one of the West Coast’s leading newspapers delivers the flavor of Los Angeles, Hollywood, and the Times’ coverage right to your iPhone.

You’ll find common news-app features here, like breaking news alerts, sharing using social media, photo galleries.

MSNBC

The MSNBC news app does one of the best jobs of sending out breaking news alerts using push notifications.The alerts are timely and relevant, but you can turn them off if they bother you.

This free app is a good choice if you regularly watch MSNBC shows like Rachel Maddow or Hardball since it includes lots of video segments from those shows. You’ll find exclusive video clips and news articles, as well.

Newsbeat

Newsbeat takes the articles you’re interested in from leading news sources and then translates them into audio stories that you can listen to. By doing this, you can create your own, custom news broadcast featuring the topics you’re most interested in.

Use the app to explore news outlets, discover new stories, and even get a daily email news digest. During your commute, weather, and traffic for your region is included, too.

Washington Post

The Washington Post’s official app (free to download; $14.99/month for unlimited access) brings the content from one of the nation’s leading websites to your iPhone. In addition to the Post’s full coverage, you’ll be able to save articles for offline reading, customize your homepage to show the news you’re most interested in, and more.

The free version of the app includes a limited number of free articles each month.

Timeline

Placing news into context, thanks to a comprehensive insight into just how each story came to be, Timeline is an ideal way of being refreshed on both past and current events.

From now on, you will know more than just the basic details of all the big stories.

Longform

Encouraging you to follow writers rather than outlets, Longform focuses on longer articles from independent blogs as well as major magazines.

There is a catalog of over 1,000 publishers, meaning there should be something of interest for all tastes, and plenty of opportunity to learn something new.

Wall Street Journal

Just like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal successfully made the transition from being solely a print operation to having a strong digital presence.

The Wall Street Journal is one of the most excellent investigative journalistic institutions, but its bread and butter is covering the business world, especially the financial sector.

Its app requires a subscription, but offers free access to a wide range of articles. The WSJ is essentially the bible of business, and its app gives you on-the-go access to in-the-know content in a great digital experience.

Metro

Each day, you can download a new issue of the Metro through the Metro Phone Edition or Metro Tablet Edition to your iPad or iPhone. You’ll then be able to read and interact with the newspaper, even if you’re on the underground without any internet connection, for example.

We prefer the iPad version of the app thanks to the big images and enticing layouts, but the iPhone version is still enjoyable to use.

Summary:

We all want to keep informed and on top of the latest developments from around the world. In the space of a minute or two, everything can change, both locally and internationally, and it’s likely you want to know all about it. The ideal way of doing this is, of course, by keeping track of things through your iPhone or iPad.

While there are plenty of perfectly adequate mobile sites you can browse for such knowledge, apps that are built entirely around iOS are sure to be more attractive, especially if you’ve just picked up a new iPhone or iPad and want to see just what it can do.

from Web Development & Designing http://www.designyourway.net/blog/tech/best-news-apps-for-iphone-and-ipad/

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