BRAIN FOOD

Steven over the the real PoliBlog disclosed where he gets all his news from; I thought I’d do the same.

Newspapers

I visit these newspaper websites daily: Minneapolis Star Tribune, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Chicago Sun Times, Des Moines Register (which is still my favorite newspaper, especially since it quit pretending it wasn’t biased about fifteen years ago; best opinion page on the planet for that very reason). I visit the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel a couple times a week. I read no ink-stain-leaving, forest-destroying dead-tree-edition newspapers. I get most of the rest of my news from Yahoo.

Television News and Commentary

None. I might watch the local news once in a while. I have little use for television.

News/Opinion Magazines

I subscribe to Reason and the National Review. I frequently buy the Utne Reader. First Things should count here, too, but I realize it probably doesn’t even register with a lot of folks.

Radio

When I’m not listening to sports-talk radio (that is, when Jim Rome is on), I listen to WTMJ from Milwaukee or WGN from Chicago, which comes in clear as a freakin’ bell up here. The only thing I listen to on public radio is Car Talk. I would listen to Morning Edition and All Things Considered if those programs were actually aired on a station I could pull in. But the only public station I can get reliably has these really, really boring talk shows all day long, every day.

Blogs

The first thing I read every morning (every weekday morning, at least), is Lileks. Then I go around the blogroll, reading the most-recently updated sites first. (Here’s a hint: You want me to read your site more often, ping Blogrolling when you update. Some of the sites at the bottom of the blogroll I don’t get around to real often.)

This is not and will never be a “hard news” blog; I can get on a story if I have a particular take on it, but really, TBP is an outlet for self-expression. I read a lot of like-minded blogs, some of which I haven’t gotten around to blogrolling yet. But I have limited time in the mornings these days.

Essentials

If time’s of the essence, I scan the headlines at Yahoo, then check to see if there’s a new Richard Roeper column at the Sun Times or new Kornheiser at the Washington Post. And I read Lileks. Must have Bleat, or day cannot begin. I also read Outside The Beltway, PoliBlog, Arguing With Signposts, and Dave Barry even if I don’t have time for anything else.

So, there ya go. I’m an NPR-spurning, TV-avoiding, Reason-subscribing reactionary who reads some of the most unapologetically liberal newspapers in the Midwest, along with occasionally dipping into the Utne Reader. Go ahead, just try to figure me out.