I hope this is a valid question for this SE. At the heart of politics must be reporting of the political process, and in every country of whatever system, the reporting of politics is seen as very important.
I'm outside the USA, and would like to follow US political news much closer than I do - more detail, more analysis. But having not grown up in that country, I don't have a clue how to be sure I'm seeing either a reasonably balanced view, or multiple views that together are reasonably balanced. Whatever source one goes to, one side or the other will claim if it's not telling their story, it's "fake", and that's a big part of the political debacle.
I know generally SE isn't just for links to sources, and many people will have opinions. An ideal answer would probably list good places to begin or learn, and why the writer thinks they are good places - the attributes and positive features that make them so. I don't do social media so I'm more looking for traditional methods?
Tl;Dr - How can I, as an overseas resident, identify which sources are big or small, reputed or not (in different quarters), and overall able to meet my goal of good quality US political self-informing?
Updates:
I'm in the UK.
The BBC is easy but its scope and depth isn't that satisfactory. I feel more "meaty" US sources would have more in-depth follow-up, not just the kinds of "overview" level as carried by the BBC, and also it covers major stories only. Its enough to familiarise, but not in much depth really. A good orientation to US news, but not much more.
I know of a few US papers, but not most, nor how a person who's grown up with US media would intuitively place even the few I know about, nor how to avoid choosing sources that leave me by mistake in an echo chamber of my own making. I don't want purely extreme wild fringe, but I don't want just to match my own political views either. I want to "get" how mainstream both sides see things, I guess.
Part of what I'm after is 2 things within that main goal -
- To not shy away totally from the partisan views, for example to have at least some awareness how right/trump leaning or left-leaning media that isn't of an extreme kind, sees events, not just how a "neutral observer" sees them, because the US * is * that polarized.
- Not just get the "huge headline item" news that overseas sources like BBC and Al Jazeera would report, but the lesser, kinda 2nd tier, news, or more in-depth followup, that a US source might report, and the extra depth or articles a US paper would publish.
If I want to go further I can look up primary sources, but that's not often needed for my interest.