Do You Know About These News Sources Online? (2024)

It's easy to use the web to follow world news, local news, and information on natural disasters or weather events. You can get news from all over the world, from virtually every country, on every possible story, from politics to natural disasters.

World News Sites

No matter where you live, these are some of the best world news sites:

• BBC News: One of the most respected news organizations on the web; great for world news, but also has location-specific categories to narrow down the stories.
• The New York Times: The New York Times continues to be one of the best sources for world news on the web. You can even see location-specific stories by choosing a continent.
• Reddit: One of the top sources on the web to find crowdsourced news, including breaking news stories that are updated by community members with insight and further resources in real-time. If you're looking for truly up-to-the-second news with commentary from "real people," Reddit is a good bet.Try World News or News, or search for news for more.
• Reuters: One of the main U.S. breaking newswires, focusing on both U.S. and international events. Many stories from Reuters are syndicated on other sites.
• Google World News: Thousands of sources update constantly on Google News to deliver stories directly to your device.
• Wikinews: Pick your geographical region and/or language, and you'll see a community-curated repository of news articles gathered by people all over the world—exactly replicating the Wikipedia collation process.
• Alternet:On the web in different iterations since 1997, Alternet provides an independent viewpoint of breaking news, mostly centered around U.S. events.
  
• PBS: Public broadcasting news for the last several decades; news here tends to be extremely well-balanced and non-partisan.
• C-SPAN: Watch legislative news as it happens; focusing on U.S. related events only.

Online Newspapers

Online newspapers are how most people get the news these days from all over the world—every major newspaper in every country, in addition to most city newspapers, are freely available online for everyone to read.

This makes monitoring news globally and locally even easier; and you can also see what other local newspapers are saying as well, no matter where you might be located.

Online Newspapers From the U.S.

Here's a list of online newspapers originating in the United States to get you started reading U.S. news from anywhere in the world:

• United States Newspapers: You might be pleasantly surprised to see how extensive this site is; both popular and obscure newspapers are featured here.
• 50States.com: Every state in America has at least one major newspaper featured here.
• SmallTownNewspapers: This news site showcases newspapers only from small towns. It lists over 250 small-town newspapers, and archives from the 1840s.

European Online Newspapers

• South of England Papers:England papers from the southern half of the British Isles.
• UK Online Newspapers: Online newspapers from several regions in the United Kingdom, including satire and positive news sources.
• France Newspapers: A good listing of print media in France.
• Germany Newspapers: Everything here from Ärzte Zeitung to Second Hand.
• German News: This is a good list of online newspapers in Germany as well as cultural magazines.
• Sweden Newspapers Online: Over 70 different Swedish newspapers are online.

Online Newspapers From Around the World

• Freedom Forum: Several hundred front pages from dozens of countries. Browse by region or select the location on a map.
• NewsLink: Newspapers from around the globe, just a click or tap away. Includes Canada, Mexico, South America, Africa, and more.
• PressReader.com: Real newspaper front page replicas from all around the world.
• OnlineNewspapers.com: Choose a continent to access thousands of online newspapers.
• NewspaperIndex: A listing of the best online newspaper sites from every country, with a focus on general news, politics, debates, and the economy.
• World-Newspapers.com: A huge listing of online newspapers from all over the world, from Africa to France to Greece.

Natural Disasters News and Information

Here are some of the best sites in which to find all kinds of natural disasters information, from breaking news to general information, history, world health efforts, and more.

• Live Science: Comprehensive articles on past, present, and future natural disasters and how they have or will affect the earth and humanity.
• Global Disaster Alert and Information System: This news site provides near real-time alerts about natural disasters around the world and tools to facilitate response coordination.
• CIDI: The Center for International Disaster Information has up-to-the-minute information on the latest floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters affecting the world.
• US News: An entire section of this U.S. news site is centered around natural disasters, everything from issues happening right now to things that occurred in the past, as well as political tensions regarding relief funds, etc.
• The Disaster Center: A long list of links with hurricane and flood information, storm reports, wildfire forecasts, and national emergencies.
• EMSC-CSEM.org: News regarding earthquakes near you and recent earthquakes around the globe.
• BBC Future: Natural Disasters: Answers to the issues facing the world in science.

Preparation, Recovery, and Aid Information

These news sites aren't primarily news-focused, but they do provide helpful information regarding protection and aid.

• CDC:The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention not only highlights recent outbreaks and provides travel notices for international travelers, but also serves as a great reference site on what to do in the case of an emergency.
• USAID:The United States Agency for International Development helps provide economic and humanitarian aid in more than 100 countries, especially those affected by natural disasters.
• Red Cross: The American Red Cross has historically been the first organization on the scene to help those affected by a tragedy.
• FEMA: Federal Emergency Management Agency has lots of excellent information on how to prepare for disasters. They also support a texting program for help finding open shelters and nearby disaster recovery centers.

More Ways to Find and Gather News

Manually searching through news sites like the ones listed above is one way to stay current, but you can also collect all your favorite news sources into one place. This helps you stay informed with little effort.

After you locate the sites you want to monitor for news updates, throw them into a news aggregator like Feedly so that all you have to do is open that one website or app to see all the information you're interested in.

Another option, and this one's my personal favorite, is to create a Google News alert. This lets you receive emails about your favorite topics. Google searches the internet for any topic you choose and sends email updates in real-time.

There are also news podcasts you can listen to. They aren't as current as text articles or videos, but they're still great for learning and revisiting old stories.

For local news, do a web search for your city and the word news, such as Dallas news. This works from any web search engine. From there, you can find all sorts of local stations and even bigger ones that cover your area. Google News is one example that has not only world news, but also stories relevant to where you live specifically.

The term "news" is extremely broad, so the sites listed above only scratch the surface of what's considered newsworthy. There are also social news sites, news blogs, celebrity news sites, and others that let you check up on politics, products, the future, and more. See our Tech News page for technology updates.