7

In an effort to become more exposed to perspectives from outside the US, I've sometimes looked for European news sites to read from. I read El Mundo for a while but I think it's a little more slanted than I was hoping for, though I'm not sure. I know about the Guardian and BBC, but without understanding the European political spectrum I feel like any choice I make will be a shot in the dark and my small sample may not be very representative.

Can I get a small sampling of European news sources from across the European political spectrum? I'm open to all languages I can Google Translate with, but I can read Spanish, English, and Portuguese reasonably well.

Improve this question
4
  • 1
    Could anyone help me make this post less opinion-based? I feel like there are several directions I could go to get more factual answers but I don't have a good feel for the kinds of questions that are most interesting to the SE:Politics community.
    – Kyle
    Jul 27, 2020 at 16:23
  • @Kyle I can't think of a way to do so. But the answers provided until now show good faith, so I voted to reopen the question, even though I understand why it was closed. I think a community wiki answer could be really good here.
    – miep
    Jul 28, 2020 at 14:10
  • I can't get why asking for a "small sampling of representative European [political] news sources" is opinioned based. I can understand it being "too broad" (or whatever the close reason was rephrased) though. Anyway, I think that it gathered so many useful answers that it deserves to be reopened.
    – Alexei
    Jul 28, 2020 at 17:06
  • 1
    This question is being discussed on meta here. The concern is that it's a "shopping question", which is generally a bad fit for the StackExchange format.
    – divibisan
    Jul 28, 2020 at 18:55

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
11

The main difficulty is that there's not a single European political spectrum really: every country has its own political landscape with significant national specificity.

For the record I consider that The Guardian has a good coverage of political news across Europe, but it's clearly on the liberal side of the political spectrum. The BBC is more neutral but also more UK-centered.

Ireland

  • The Irish Times, leans slightly liberal
  • The Irish Independent, classified as "populist conservative" by Wikipedia.
  • RTE is the public broadcaster (equivalent to the BBC for the UK), fairly neutral but not independent.

France

  • Le Monde, probably the reference newspaper, with a social democrat inclination.
  • Le Figaro is another well known newspaper, this time with a strong conservative orientation.
  • Libération has a clear left-wing orientation
  • France Info is a public news channel which appeared recently as a result of merging news services from various public channels. Probably fairly neutral but not old enough to judge its quality.
Improve this answer
6
  • I would no more consider Libération with a "clear left-wing orientation". It's much more social-democrat: lemonde.fr/politique/article/2020/07/20/… As "a leftist point of view", I would suggest Le monde diplomatique (could be read in english), and mediapart (only online, but in english too, I think)
    – fedor
    Jul 26, 2020 at 11:34
  • 1
    To expand on the 1st para, most European countries don't have an equivalent of the huge cultural divide between the USA Democrat and Republican camps. Hence while we have media which is slanted this way or that, the range is smaller, the agreement on what is true and important is broader, and the chasm between the extremes is missing.
    – Paul Johnson
    Jul 26, 2020 at 13:33
  • 1
    In some ways it's even worse; Several European countries have regions with their own political landscape entirely separate from those in other regions.
    – origimbo
    Jul 26, 2020 at 16:01
  • @PaulJohnson: you can add that European newspapers are in general much more civilized than in the US.
    – markvs
    Jul 26, 2020 at 18:30
  • 2
    @EricDuminil There are a couple of whole questions there, but briefly, in most of the EU the Overton Window is well to the left of the USA one but there is still a left-right divide. E.g. in the UK the healthcare debate is over how to run the NHS, not whether "socialised medicine" is a Good Thing. As for the cultural divide, you are a couple of decades out of date. See pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/… That was for 2014. I don't think things have improved since.
    – Paul Johnson
    Jul 27, 2020 at 6:33
8

Germany

  • taz (die tageszeitung), a leftist daily paper. Their website has no paywall, just occasional "klick here to donate, klick there to continue without paying."
  • The Süddeutsche Zeitung would make the list but it is paywalled.
  • faz (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), a conservative daily paper.
  • tageschau.de, the news website of the ARD public broadcast service. I'd call their political leaning "political status quo with deliberate gridlock."
  • Deutsche Welle, the English-language site of a public broadcast service. Not very representative of what Germans in Germany read, however.
Improve this answer
3
  • I regularly visit Der Spiegel. One of the nice things about this website is that you can comment and get into discussion. Generally left leaning as is its readership, but with notable and frequent exceptions.
    – ouflak
    Jul 27, 2020 at 8:22
  • 1
    @ouflak, Spiegel Online is not the same as Spiegel. The print edition would definitely make the list. Regarding the leaning, I'f call them "critical of the government of the day" in the best press tradition.
    – o.m.
    Jul 27, 2020 at 10:38
  • I'm not too familiar with the print version of Spiegel. Are they different journalists? Deutsche Welle is in German as well for anybody who's interested. Not sure about the leanings as I don't visit it quite that often. I'd guess rather neutral if the TV broadcast is any indication.
    – ouflak
    Jul 27, 2020 at 10:49
6

United Kingdom

The Economist is based in London, although it aims to have global scope. It has good coverage of current events, although it is (obviously) slanted towards business and economic issues. It's broadly liberal/libertarian; in favour of drug liberalisation, gay marriage, BLM, equality before the law and free trade. It sees government intervention in the economy as a necessary evil with the burden of proof on those who would advocate it.

The populist right is probably best defined by the Daily Mail. I grew up with this when it was very much on the Thatcherite Right of the Tory party. I gather it's moderated a bit in recent years, but I haven't been reading it.

The populist left, on the other hand, is the Daily Mirror.

Also don't forget Sky News, which is a 24 hour TV news channel a bit to the right of the BBC, and Channel 4 News, which is a bit to the left.

Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    +1 for the Economist. It's always an interesting, well researched and well sourced read. I find it pleasant to read even when I don't agree with the point of view of the articles. At least it's clear that the author is intelligent and cares deeply about the job and the subject matter.
    – Eric Duminil
    Jul 26, 2020 at 21:37
2

The I is a centralist/liberal UK-based newspaper

The i takes a political stance on the centre of the political spectrum, with many front-page headline articles being concerned with social issues and inequality - but it also claims to be politically balanced and to publish points of view from both left and right.

There is also a list of UK newspapers on Wikipedia, with tables including their political stance.

Improve this answer
2

Spain

  • El País is the highest circulation daily, leans centre-left
  • El Mundo is the second highest circulation daily, leans centre-right to right
  • ABC is to the right of el Mundo
  • La Razón would be to the right of ABC
  • Público is to the left of el País

There are also a number of more regional papers (el Periódico, la Vanguardia, etc) which can be interesting to get a different view (these two are from Barcelona/

Note that there is also a Portuguese newspaper called Público but I don't know enough about Portuguese politics or media to know if it has anything to do with the Spanish version (but I imagine not)

Improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .