Where Do You Get Your News Without Social Media?

sundialsvcs · 12-12-2024, 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rkelsen

Oh, the irony.

Well, striving very hard to keep "politics" out of it, I do believe that today it is extremely important to obtain your "news" from a variety of sources. And, "the Internet" provides you with a completely-unthinkable(!) capacity to do just that. However, it also means that you must be the one to "do the digging," and that you cannot merely "rely on a 'search engine'" to do your leg-work for you. Your proper search will require days or weeks or months – not "two minutes."

The skills that you actually need to have, and to develop, are those of the classic "researcher," poring through libraries and public archives that never had a proper "index." You also need to be suspicious, even cynical, at appropriate moments. But, if you persevere, you can find information at the unlikeliest of places.

For example: https://thepostil.com. This is an on-line imprint of St. Augustine Press – a fully-religious site. It has strong views that you may or may not agree with, but its focus is not political. Nonetheless, if you search through its archives, you will discover truly-scholarly articles which describe the actual political history of what is now known as "Ukraine." Stretching all the way back to – literally – "a grandson of Genghis Kahn." (No. You can't simply park on the front page, nor be distracted by the sometimes-political postings that you these days superficially find there. You have to put on your muddy-clothes and dig.)

Of course, you're already familiar with "online forums with vast archives." You're right-now using one of the very best . . .

Just as here, "the gold is found underneath the dirt."

teckk · 12-12-2024, 08:38 AM

I've always thought that this was a good news source. One of the better ones for US news. It's after the fact, but a good source of info.
https://www.pbs.org/show/frontline/

Or here:

Code:

https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=FRONTLINE+PBS&sp=EgQIAxAB

ape_din · 12-12-2024, 09:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs

https://thepostil.com.

Thank you for this!

teckk · 12-12-2024, 09:49 AM

I was thinking. If you are a low bandwidth member, and you can't afford to download those large videos. You can actually get a transcript of those frontline videos easy enough. I'll use urllib and html2text for this.

Example for that latest video:

frontTrans.py

Code:

from urllib import request
from html2text import html2text, HTML2Text

#User agent to use
ag = ('Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; x86_64; rv:122.0) '
            'Gecko/20100101 Firefox/122.0')
            
#Make a request header
agent = {'User-Agent': ag,
            'Accept': 'text/html,application/xhtml+xml,'
            'application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8',
            'Accept-Charset': 'ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3',
            'Accept-Encoding': 'none',
            'Accept-Language': 'en-US,en;q=0.8',
            'Connection': 'keep-alive'}
                        
#Name output files
cacheName = 'Frontline'

#Url for frontline video example
url='https://www.pbs.org/video/breakdown-in-maine-fh9rq7/'

class getTrans():
    def __init__(self, url, agent):
    
        #Download the page source code, once.
        self.req = request.Request(url, data=None, headers=agent)
        self.get = request.urlopen(self.req)
        self.html = self.get.read().decode('utf-8', 'ignore')
        
        #Write source to file, once, so that you have it.
        with open(cacheName+'.html', 'w') as f:
            f.write(self.html)
            
        #Read the source for parsing
        with open(cacheName+'.html', 'r') as f:
            scode = ''.join(x for x in f if x)
        noLinks = HTML2Text()
        noLinks.ignore_links = True
        self.txt = noLinks.handle(scode)
        
        #Write the parsed output to file
        with open(cacheName+'.trans', 'w') as f:
            f.write(self.txt)
            
if __name__ == "__main__":
    getTrans(url, agent)

And that gives you a 51k text file with the transcript of the video. (Frontline.trans) And saves the source if you want to use it. Very small download.

business_kid · 12-12-2024, 12:33 PM

What is the TTS engine?

Have you tried it on any other videos? (e.g. bbc.com, france24.com, dw.com/en)

teckk · 12-12-2024, 01:02 PM

Nope, no speech to text. That is something that is on/in PBS's video page.

Did you run that script?. You'll see that it parses that pages content and spits it out, formatted. So, you have a transcript of the video. Not overly complicated. Actually might be good for someone who is hearing impaired. But, those videos also have a subtitle stream. So, you could embed that into the video. Or a separate sub stream that you can turn on with your media player controls. That has been a pretty good news program over the years.

You could also use requests instead of urllib. You can use html2text by itself and input everything on the cli. Python makes it a little nicer to use. Instead of hard coding the url, you could use a python input statement to prompt for a url.

Blah blah blah...

teckk · 12-12-2024, 01:10 PM

In fact, one could get just the sub stream, without the video.

Code:

./pbs_get
Enter/paste PBS video web page URL: https://www.pbs.org/video/breakdown-in-maine-fh9rq7/

mp4 redirect:
https://urs.pbs.org/redirect/6d8de02e30cd4c17a4ee2f5f367ca5c1/

mp4 url:
https://ga.pbs-video.pbs.org/videos/frontline/45d1945d-a43c-4910-aecd-61f509838811/2000455956/hd-16x9-mezzanine-1080p/00004312-mp4-720p-3000k.mp4


m3u8 redirect:
https://urs.pbs.org/redirect/ada4a0395a604eb08ef9be5795bf3064/

m3u8 url:
https://ga.pbs-video.pbs.org/videos/frontline/45d1945d-a43c-4910-aecd-61f509838811/2000455956/hd-16x9-mezzanine-1080p/00004312-AABR-AVC_842.m3u8


m3u8 streams:
#EXTM3U

#EXT-X-INDEPENDENT-SEGMENTS

#EXT-X-VERSION:4

#EXT-X-MEDIA:URI="00004312-AABR-AVC_eng_0_VBR_48_229193.m3u8",TYPE=AUDIO,GROUP-ID="multiple_audio_tracks",LANGUAGE="eng",NAME="English",DEFAULT=YES,AUTOSELECT=YES,CHANNELS="2"

#EXT-X-MEDIA:URI="00004312_en-captions_842.m3u8",TYPE=SUBTITLES,GROUP-ID="subs",LANGUAGE="en",NAME="English",DEFAULT=NO,AUTOSELECT=YES,FORCED=NO,CHARACTERISTICS="public.accessibility.describes-music-and-sound,public.accessibility.transcribes-spoken-dialog"

#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=13458094,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=3178700,RESOLUTION=1920x1080,FRAME-RATE=29.97,CODECS="avc1.640028,mp4a.40.2",VIDEO-RANGE=SDR,AUDIO="multiple_audio_tracks",SUBTITLES="subs"

00004312-AABR-AVC-1080p_13000k_1.m3u8

#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=6859275,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=1875942,RESOLUTION=1600x900,FRAME-RATE=29.97,CODECS="avc1.640028,mp4a.40.2",VIDEO-RANGE=SDR,AUDIO="multiple_audio_tracks",SUBTITLES="subs"

00004312-AABR-AVC-900p_6026k_2.m3u8

#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=3623824,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=1236812,RESOLUTION=1280x720,FRAME-RATE=29.97,CODECS="avc1.64001f,mp4a.40.2",VIDEO-RANGE=SDR,AUDIO="multiple_audio_tracks",SUBTITLES="subs"

00004312-AABR-AVC-720p_2794k_3.m3u8

#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=1664758,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=692322,RESOLUTION=960x540,FRAME-RATE=29.97,CODECS="avc1.64001f,mp4a.40.2",VIDEO-RANGE=SDR,AUDIO="multiple_audio_tracks",SUBTITLES="subs"

00004312-AABR-AVC-540p_1296k_4.m3u8

#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=819023,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=385491,RESOLUTION=640x360,FRAME-RATE=29.97,CODECS="avc1.64001e,mp4a.40.2",VIDEO-RANGE=SDR,AUDIO="multiple_audio_tracks",SUBTITLES="subs"

00004312-AABR-AVC-360p_600k_5.m3u8

#EXT-X-I-FRAME-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=1502287,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=417947,RESOLUTION=1920x1080,CODECS="avc1.640028",URI="00004312-AABR-AVC-1080p_13000k_1_I-Frame.m3u8"

#EXT-X-I-FRAME-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=984399,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=281140,RESOLUTION=1600x900,CODECS="avc1.640028",URI="00004312-AABR-AVC-900p_6026k_2_I-Frame.m3u8"

#EXT-X-I-FRAME-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=665208,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=198253,RESOLUTION=1280x720,CODECS="avc1.64001f",URI="00004312-AABR-AVC-720p_2794k_3_I-Frame.m3u8"

#EXT-X-I-FRAME-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=397372,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=114669,RESOLUTION=960x540,CODECS="avc1.64001f",URI="00004312-AABR-AVC-540p_1296k_4_I-Frame.m3u8"

#EXT-X-I-FRAME-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=194575,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=60647,RESOLUTION=640x360,CODECS="avc1.64001e",URI="00004312-AABR-AVC-360p_600k_5_I-Frame.m3u8"

See the sub streams? If you don't want the whole huge video.

hazel · 12-13-2024, 04:43 AM

Thank you Teck! That's the second really useful program you've given me.

teckk · 12-13-2024, 06:36 AM

Welcome, glad that I could contribute something.

I do the "Low bandwidth" approach on just about all internet activity.

Edit:
Little behind on user agent I now see. That should be:

Code:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:132.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/132.0

grumpyskeptic · 12-13-2024, 08:21 AM

I'm surprised that anyone would consider social media as a serious news source. I never use it.

I buy a paper newspaper every day. What I find irritating about them is that they try, at least in the UK, to be a magazine rather than a newspaper. Too much opinion and sport, not enough news. I want to read about the lost cat of Mrs Jones from Llandudno, not recipes or self-help advice.

As well as the BBC news website, I also listen to BBC radio news, and mostly BBC tv news. So they have rather a monopoly.

Free access, at least in the UK, British newspapers -

https://inews.co.uk/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/

https://www.theguardian.com/uk

Other interesting stuff -

https://www.aldaily.com/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/

Edit: The Telegraph and Guardian have US editions -

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/

https://www.theguardian.com/us?INTCMP=CE_US

The Guardian also has Australian, European, and International editions.

teckk · 12-13-2024, 10:49 AM

Just looked up these.

Use a media player that will play a segmented playlist.

BBC World Service

Code:

ffplay "https://a.files.bbci.co.uk/ms6/live/3441A116-B12E-4D2F-ACA8-C1984642FA4B/\
audio/simulcast/hls/nonuk/mobile_wifi_main_sd_abr_v2/cf/bbc_world_service_news_internet.m3u8"

BBC Live News

Code:

ffplay "https://a.files.bbci.co.uk/ms6/live/3441A116-B12E-4D2F-ACA8-C1984642FA4B/\
audio/simulcast/hls/nonuk/mobile_wifi_main_sd_abr_v2/ak/bbc_sounds_news.m3u8"

business_kid · 12-13-2024, 10:50 AM

+1 on the BBC. I actually don't need great detail of people's lives. It's all BAD news. Why depress yourself? News can become an addiction.

Your newspaper links are free here (Ireland), except for the Guardian. It's free first time, but I reckon there's a guillotine coming.

teckk · 12-13-2024, 11:00 AM

Another way to do that, still low bandwidth.

Deutsche Welle

Code:

yt-dlp -f 234 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZT2MCYu6Zw -o - | ffplay -

linuxuser371038 · 12-13-2024, 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by business_kid

I use http://bbc.co.uk/news, or occasionally https://www.france24.com/en/
For Irish news, I occasionally use http://rte.ie/news
For news about those I am closer to, https://www.jw.org/en/news/region/
There's a good German site in English too, but I forget it.

More importantly, I don't get news. The world wouldn't stop rotating if I didn't know a thing about the situation. just like I don't know much about the many vicious civil wars going on in Africa or Asia. You probably don't either, because they are not in the news cycle. Nobody has a reporter in these ugly, unfashionable places. You just follow the headlines you hear like most folks.

News is addictive. I try not to get hooked, and limit my intake.

I used to use bbc until I noticed the leftist agenda propaganda and found it insufferable at some point a few years ago. I wasn't able to place my finger on it before but it felt 'not right' and now notice the clear biases on other things like louis theroux who I feel has gotten worse and worse with the baiting over the years probably just keeping up with his peers' and the general climate.

I went the other way for a short spell and used daily mail for a while to get a taste of the other side but they are just the same adding 'woke' into nearly every post. Two sides of the same coin. I feel daily mail is a bit more honest though with their boobs and trash stories. Less pretensions to anything higher.

Now I just don't actively look up news unless it is a personal interest topic but I tend to get the latest headlines from general forums like this now.

I think it is better like that when only the most sensational stuff filters through.

Only found out about trump being re-elected from here I think. I had a vague idea there was going to be another election in the united states just was not aware of when precisely.

hazel · 12-14-2024, 01:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by linuxuser371038

I used to use BBC until I noticed the leftist agenda propaganda and found it insufferable at some point a few years ago. I wasn't able to place my finger on it before but it felt 'not right' and now notice the clear biases on other things like Louis Theroux who I feel has gotten worse and worse with the baiting over the years probably just keeping up with his peers' and the general climate.

I went the other way for a short spell and used Daily Mail for a while to get a taste of the other side but they are just the same adding 'woke' into nearly every post. Two sides of the same coin. I feel Daily Mail is a bit more honest though with their boobs and trash stories. Less pretensions to anything higher.

Sadly your experience of the BBC has been very much my own. I remember from my childhood a BBC that was revered throughout the world for its honesty and impartiality. People living under dictatorships famously used to listen to the BBC World Service in secret because it was the one place they could rely on getting the truth. Those days are long past.

What I really resent though is that, even if I don't watch the BBC at all, I still have to pay them a large sum for the privilege of watching other TV channels. The Daily Mail may be a right-wing rag but no one is forced to buy it if they don't want to read it. If you're British, you have to "buy" the BBC or go to prison.

@linuxuser371038: have you tried the Daily Telegraph? It's an intelligent right-wing paper, a lot less trashy than the Mail. A sort of anti-Guardian.