The purpose of a "free press" is to act as a watchdog to the people in power -- our elected & business leaders-- to make sure they're not abusing their power. Sadly, the mainstream press (owned largely by big corporations) is more of a lapdog to the status quo, and does more to protect the powerful than to challenge them.  This results in a censoring of news that's vital for the public to know, the creation of a complacent electorate, and little chance of replacing our consumer-driven society with enlightened individuals who would put citizenship first, ahead of bowing to a pro-corporate view of the world.

That said, here are the on-line sources for news & information I turn to the most, and heartily recommend:

Amy Goodman & company pick up the stories that mainstream media ignore and do a great job covering them. Listen to her delivery style and you'd swear she was Walter Cronkite's daughter.

 
Citizen journalism, at its best, from around the world, 24/7.

First-rate international reporting & commentary, one from the UK,  the other from France. Why can't the US have newspapers like these?

Palast is unbelievable. His reporting is great and his style makes him so fun to read, you can't put him down. How did Bush steal the 2000 election? How is the oil industry controlling US foreign policy? Why does Hugo Chavez get such a bum rap by the US media? How does the IMF/World Bank really work to enrich multinational corporations and impoverish developing countries?  He has two books filled with reports that answer these & many other questions. His first book was even translated into Japanese. Both copies on my desk are autographed by him personally, dog-eared and well-worn by now, and, no, sorry, I won't lend them out. Buy your own.

Chomsky's quoted as saying that Palast "upsets all the right people."  That's no faint praise coming from a man who's been hard at the same for the last 40 years. This is as close to an official site as you'll get; a great resource for interviews with, articles by, and reports about the world's top intellectual. And no, you don't have to know anything about linguistics or government & binding to delve into Chomsky's all-to-well supported theories on propaganda & media control, or his airtight critical arguments of US domestic & foreign policy.

Professor Peter Phillips at Sonoma State University has his sociology department students scour the independent media for the stories ignored by the mainstream press, and every year publishes a terrific volume based on their findings. They call it Project Censored; I call it required reading for every American.

You have to ask yourself, does voting even matter, now that the industrial-military-congressional complex firmly controls not just the people we vote for, but also the media through which we view them? It IS refreshing to know that there are journalists out there who can tell us who lies the least. The next time your friend forwards you an idiot-written Internet chain email, just check its veracity at one of the above websites and smile smugly. (Why are there no emoticons for "smile smugly"?)

One of the grand old men of broadcast journalism is still going strong. Check out his podcast for December 21, 2007 about "Crisis in Capitalism" with Benjamin Barber....or "Inequality in America" on June 14, 2008. Guests as good as they get, talking about topics & issues you'll never hear on Fox or CNN.

Who's YOUR congressman or Senator taking money from? Find out here.

A great dumping ground for news that the mainstream media won't touch for fear of pissing off their corporate overlords.