If you actually want to know what is going on, just reading one or two newspapers simply won't cut it. In fact, keeping current isn't easy. It requires a lot of work. That's why most people prefer to turn off their brains and let the entertainment based media shovel news about Kim Kardashian and other important national matters into their brains.
Even if you read a supposedly important newspaper, such as the New York Times or the Washington Post, this simply isn't enough. It's a great start, but not enough. There are inevitably stories and issues which the main stream media will ignore but may nevertheless be incredibly important.
You used to have to subscribe to foreign newspapers, academic journals, and other sources to get a more complete picture of what is going on. Thanks to Google News, you can now type in a subject area and it will aggregate news articles from around the globe. You may be surprised, for example, to see what the Australian, Canadian, or British press has to say about something like the Occupy Wall Street movement. The same goes for the American elections. Try searching for "Republican primary" and see what you get. You may be surprised.
You are also well served in seeing what both the left and right have to say about an issue. To see what the right has to say, other than reading the National Review, look to the business press. The institutional mainstream conventional thought will be reflected in such periodicals as Bloomberg News and Forbes.
Being well informed is hard work. Most people don't want to do that. Scrutinizing everything you hear and analyzing it is tough. However, if you want to be informed, you must work at it. Ideas do matter. People live or die based upon the ideas of others. If no one will do the work, not even you, then who?
The future of this country is decided by those who care.
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