News Perspectives

Ever gotten sick and tired of trying to find out what's really happening in other countries, particularly those targeted by the U.S. government, and finding only the same biased views on every Western media site?

I have, and recently came up with a solution of my own. I look for news sites based in the countries themselves, and almost always find myself looking at international situations with a new perspective. Of course it helps to know other languages, but many foreign news media have their sites in English as well as their own language.

It started with Venezuela, because of the obvious corporation-bias in Western coverage of that country (and the rest of South America I might add.) The disrepancy between the coverage and what I knew from my cultural studies to be true was great, and thus began my search for foreign media to get international news.

I bookmark the good sites I find, which makes it easy to keep coming back and back to keep up with the news. Currently, my focus is on Iran, because of the constant U.S. concentration on demonizing and provoking a fight with them. Here are a few good news sites (though I'm not done looking for non-US-biased sites about that region.)

Payvand is a good one, with news from several different sites and from different viewpoints. The IRNA is one I often check - Iran's official news agency. I also like reading blogs by people who actually live in that country. I've only found a few so far about Iran and most aren't updated frequently, but here are some of the best I've discovered. The Super Heavy is a gem, with anecdotes and fascinating details about life in Iran, from the perspective of an American woman married to an Iranian. This one, this one, and this one have good photos of Iran for those who want to know what the country looks like.

Enjoy, and I hope you'll look for your own good sources of foreign media to counteract agenda-biased propaganda!