By: Rohan Siddhanti

In today’s fast-paced world, it is hard to figure out where to look for your news. If you have picked up this issue of the Progressive, you clearly have some thirst for political news. In an era where there are hundreds of political news websites, which ones will give you the most balanced, complete view of the day’s stories?

You might be wondering, “Why should I take advice from this guy?” Well, let me answer that. I like to think of myself as a connoisseur of news. Like the squirrel that darts out into the wilderness to pick up that specific nut, I constantly forage the web to identify news sources that fit my style. My style is one that appreciates a balanced view point.

Let’s take this from a top-down perspective. If you’re looking for a quick gist of the daily or breaking news, cnn.com/politics should be your first source. They have reporters around the globe, and when it comes to breaking news, if cnn.com doesn’t have it, it probably isn’t true. Also, look for their “quick hits” on the top right-hand corner of each article for a short bullet-point summary.

Another top-down news source is BBC.com. “The international perspective is the most important,” recent Cornell graduate Nicholas Scinta recently explained. “I find that the best news comes from a source that has no U.S. media filter. There’s less flare, more facts.” BBC exemplifies this type of broad, international perspective.

Once you’ve learned the daily news, you may want to take a closer look at the day’s stories. At this point you should go to the Wall Street Journal’s website, wsj.com. WSJ is especially well known for business news, but is a good source for other areas as well. The Washington Post and New York Times also contain good news and opinion pieces. Each newspaper leans in a certain political direction, so take all newspaper articles with a grain of salt.

Now, we’re getting into a more specific realm of political websites—the in-depth websites that provide insight into stories that you won’t get anywhere else. The first to consider is Talkingpointsmemo.com. Talking Points Memo is exactly what it sounds like—a news source that provides the arguments and the pros and cons of each side. TPM is widely viewed in political circles as a good way to get simple facts about the issues.

These websites are all what I call “survey websites.” Like a survey course in college, these websites cover the broad spectrum of political news, leaving almost nothing out. There is, however, a realm of political websites that cover specific issues.

The first is fivethirtyeight.com. Managed by D.C. bloggers and headed by statistician Nate Silver, this site is the prime source for numbers-based news. Fivethirtyeight is special because they use regression analysis, probability, and statistics to illustrate political trends to its readers. They also operate on a case-by-case basis, showing readers, for example, “Senator X said this; here are the numbers to prove him or her right or wrong.”

Recently, a crop of websites I call “regulatory websites” have appeared. These websites aim to serve as parole officers for the government. They use public and congressional records to keep tabs on how money is spent, what congressmen and elected officials say, and how they spend their time.

The most famous of these websites is factcheck.org, which takes quotes from politicians and analyzes whether or not they are true. Another is The Center for Responsive Politics’ opensecrets.org, whose site title is “Money is politics—See Who’s Giving and Who’s Getting.”

Two other recent regulatory websites are capitalwords.com and whorunsgov.com. The first website has a very simple purpose: to track which words members of Congress use most often,. The idea is that this indicates which issues are most important to that particular elected official.

Whorunsgov is a project of the Washington Post Company, so my earlier assertions still apply. They feature over 700 profiles of D.C. officials and lawmakers, and their database continues to expand. Each profile has a “Why he/she matters” and a “Path to power” section, among several others. The site seeks to identify the spiders that are spinning the web of power that is our federal government.

Now you might be thinking “Ughh, this guy just gave me nine different websites, what’s the point in that?” The point is that no one can get a complete picture of the day’s news from one site. However, RealClearPolitics.com (RCP) comes close. RCP is my #1, go-to website when I need to learn about an issue. The website itself does not write or publish articles but rather chooses the best articles about each topic, from publications around the country. Furthermore, the website only features articles that pertain to the five or six top stories of the day or week, rather than the deluge of information that you get at most other websites.

On a related note, I want to appoint out the fairly new technology by Google, called “Fast Flip.” Fast Flip is essentially an online newspaper with unlimited pages on unlimited topics. You simply enter your query, for example, “health care,” and it gives you relevant stories from every credible newspaper it can find. So if you’re completely lost on a particular issue, use Google’s Fast Flip to start you off.

After using these websites, you could all become well-versed political pundits. Who knows, maybe you’ll be writing for one of these websites someday.