These are some sites that I follow. The list will never be complete, but I’ll be updating this on a strictly CBB (can-be-bothered) basis. All categories will be in (rough) alphabetical order.
If I forgot you, or if I don’t know about you yet, but you feel you should be included, feel free to contact me at majorkarnage@gmail.com.
Friends of The Blog
Liam Getreu: Young Australian left-wing Jew type.
One Song Day: Two brothers running a great music blog.
Wikistrat: Strategic analysis company. MajorKarnage is a partner analyst and contributes to their program. Some good stuff here, check it.
Bloggers I like
Walter Russel Mead: brilliant US based analyst. Covers geopolitics and tends to get things right.
Ta-Nehisi Coates: Atlantic writer, covers a lot of social issues.
Jeffrey Goldberg: also at the Atlantic, has written some of the best Middle East coverage out there.
Alyssa Rosenberg: Film/TV/pop culture critic at Think Progress , has some of the best insights into the modern world of anyone out there.
Daniel Drezner: professor of political science at Tufts, contributing editor at Foreign Policy, has a penchant for zombies (yep, zombies).
Michael Totten: brilliant wondering reporter.
Jennifer Rubin: columnist at the Washington Post, writes from a progressive right-wing viewpoint (yes, there is such a thing).
Andrew Sullivan: former New Republic editor amongst other things. His blog covers pretty much everything interesting on the web. Also a progressive right-winger, although does tend to be a little racist sometimes (particularly, but not exclusively, on Israel).
Elliott Abrams: Deputy National Security Advisor under George W. Bush, one of the architects of the Bush Middle East policy during his second term (when it was good).
Publications I Like
Tablet: creator Alana Newhouse described it to me like this (quote may not be exact): “the mainstream publications did great journalism, but didn’t get Jews. The Jewish publications got Jews, but didn’t do good journalism. I made Tablet to do great journalism that gets Jews”. She did this well.
The Atlantic: Iconic American magazine, with everything from pop culture and the arts to great fictional writing to hard-hitting political investigations and analysis.
The Daily Beast: Online magazine with some great opinion writers.
Foreign Affairs Magazine: The top foreign policy analysis for bookish, academic types and serious career professionals.
Foreign Policy Magazine: Foreign Affairs’ more popular and better looking cousin, who never did as well at school, but was always better at people. Less high-brow, but shorter, easier to read and with more regular updates and blogs.
The New Yorker: Iconic US weekly, while it is New York-centric, some of the best profiles, essays and investigations come from here, same for great new fiction and pop-culture critics.
Slate: Another online magazine that has made it into mainstream analysis circles.
Vanity Fair: Focusses mostly on pop-culture, but still has some very good serious journalism. The most high-brow magazine that would ver put Justin Bieber on the cover.
News I Like
Al-Arabiya: The more reasonable and less populist of the two major Arab media outlets. This is their English site.
The Australian: The highest-level of coverage, with the best commentary and analysis of any newspaper in Australia. It speaks volumes that their circulation is growing, while every other newspaper in Australia is losing subscribers. Leans right, but allows for debate.
Haaretz: Israel’s metropolitan “chattering classes” daily, although its circulation has been plummeting over the last decade. Leans left, published in both English and Hebrew.
The Jerusalem Post: Israel’s bestselling English-language paper, leans right.
The New York Times: Left-leaning US newspaper, probably has the highest quality journalism of any paper in the world, even if some commentators are a bit shaky on Middle-East issues.
The Washington Post: The New York Times‘ under-appreciated rival. Just as high quality of reporting, better analysts and not so blatantly partisan.
The Sydney Morning Herald: should not be on this list, since they publish Paul McGeough, but this is the best NSW-specific paper. It is also the only one that is not The Daily Telegraph (much more of a Murdoch-owned Tabloid than its British namesake). Leans left.
The Telegraph: The Independent is too extreme, The Guardian is too far up itself and trying too hard to be controversial, The Financial Times is too…financial and The Times is not Murdoch’s best effort (that would be The Australian or The Wall Street Journal). Yes it has a reputation as the “Torygraph” as it tends to lean to the right, but The Telegraph consistently provides the best UK-based reporting of any newspaper that doesn’t publish crap like this.
Ynet: English-language version of Israel’s top-selling tabloid. Leans to the centre (if that’s possible).
Organisations I Like
Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council
Saban Centre for Middle East policy at the Brookings Institute
Washington Institute for Near East Policy
#1 by vetements mode on March 11, 2012 - 12:20 pm
Superbe tenue :p