Happy New Year Bobert! You might want to bookmark the Common Dreams Newswire and AlterNet home pages for great news--and real news, not like the Washington Post!

AlterNet is here:

www.alternet.org

And here is a snippet from their Mission page:

Our Mission

The AlterNet Mission

AlterNet.org is an online magazine and information resource where pressing issues are subject to examination and debate.

By providing quality journalism, dependable research, issue-focused public interest content and passionate advocacy, we believe our readers will be better equipped to make informed decisions about problems that affect us all.

Overall, we seek to engage our community of readers in problem solving, community action and awareness of current events in the United States and abroad.

The Problem We Face

Millions of people, despite leading busy lives, are concerned about the direction of our country and its policies. We are hungry for the trustworthy, stimulating and value-driven information we need to create change. Good policies, and especially good changes to bad policies, require mobilizing concerned citizens.

The media marketplace is increasingly dominated by commercial messages, or focused on entertainment at the expense of insightful information. The results of this trend are large gaps in news coverage and diminished public confidence in the media. Although thousands of issue-oriented websites offer outstanding public interest content, too many remain hidden to experienced researchers and casual Internet users.

Without qualified editors to evaluate material and make it easier for users to find and act upon it, the public interest information people want and need will continue to be marginalized.

The Solution We Propose: The Infomediary

At AlterNet.org, we are doing something about information overload and corporate media irresponsibility. Our website is designed to serve as your "online helper," leading individuals, policy professionals and journalists alike to sources for information and insight. There is a word for this role. It is an "infomediary."

Average people need an infomediary to help them sort through the mass of information. Activists need an infomediary to lead them quickly to collegial efforts and relevant data. Public interest websites need an infomediary to steer like-minded people to their content.

The infomediary finds, evaluates, aggregates and organizes links to the best journalism, policy analysis and websites on a range of pressing issues, from globalization and grassroots organizing, to the war on drugs and genetic engineering.

Common Dreams Newswire is here:

http://www.commondreams.org/

They too republish news stories from other sources. Both are somewhat like online Utne Reader type sites. Of the two, Common Dreams has the most extensive links to progressive periodicals, journals, etc. as well as conventional news sources (like their links section to US television stations and news and public affairs programming websites.

One of my New Years resolutions is not even bother with my former daily fixes at the Post and Boston Globe. I've got these two bookmarked as my main news pages now. Very high quality journalism from a progressive perspective.