How To Become Well-Informed

— Watching monopolized televised news at home and listening to talk radio on the daily commute inspires herd worthiness!

Michael Weddle
5 min readJul 10, 2021

Providers of Opinion:

Follow the names below. Read what they and their colleagues write and talk about on social media. Look for when they debate or are interviewed. Note the information they share and especially their quality of reference.

Most are Progressive voices who’ve been out of power since JFK was shot. Some are Libertarian and a few are Conservative. It’s best to study and understand multiple sides of any issue and not simply let main corporatized media lead you into the herd with a smile on your face.

It’s also a great idea to read, if not the whole study, at least the abstracts of various scholarly studies pertaining to a wide range of subjects and of those especially related to politics. A great example is the 2014 Princeton Study on Oligarchy:

Five corporations control 90% of all media!

Bottom line? Question just about everything!

[NOTE: There’s a mixed bag of thinkers in the below grouping. But what’s important is they make you think. Also notable are those who are well-known, some even famous, who are not included on the below list. Did you ever scratch your head and wonder how on earth did ‘they’ end up featured on major networks?]

Hats off to The Great Ones!

RIP: I.F. Stone, Howard Zinn, Gore Vidal, Robert Parry, Serena Shim, William Blum, Justin Raimondo, Stephen F. Cohen, Shireen Abu Akleh, Alexander Cockburn, David Graeber, Robert Fisk, Gary Webb and Michael Hastings.

Julian Assange, Kristinn Hrafnsson, John Pilger, Pepe Escobar, Ralph Nader, Richard Wolff, Aaron Maté, Abby Martin, Chris Hedges, George Galloway, Gareth Porter, Seymour Hersh, Noam Chomsky, Glenn Greenwald, Lucy Komisar, Joe Lauria, Craig Murray, Cornel West, Scott Ritter, Margaret Kimberley, Greg Palast, William Montague, Billmon, Bernhard, John Kiriakou, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, Oliver Stone, Matt Taibbi, Caitlin Johnstone, Ben Norton, Max Blumenthal, Lee Camp, Garland Nixon, Eva Bartlett, William Arkin, Hedwig Kuijpers, Jimmy Dore, Nafeez Ahmed, James Bamford, Jamarl Thomas, Adolph Reed, Vanessa Beeley, Paul Jay, Jesse Ventura, Katie Halper, Robert Sheer, The Saker, Paul Pillar, Eva Golinger, Daniel Lazare, Jeremy Scahill, Rania Khalek, Mike Whitney, Gerald Horne, Elizabeth Vos, Tim Anderson, Catherine Austin Fitts, Tareq Haddad, Benjamin Dixon, James Howard Kunstler, Patrick Cockburn, Naomi Klein, Tim Black, Patrick Lawrence, Christy Ai, Mike Prysner, Kevin Gosztola, Jonathan Cook, Paul Street, Michael Moore, Norman Solomon, David Sirota, Krystal Ball, Mark Ames, Eric Zuesse, Elijah J. Magnier, Paul L. Williams, Adam Carter, Ray McGovern, The Forensicator, Amy Goodman, Rick Sanchez, Caleb Maupin, Medea Benjamin, Vijay Prashad, Jordan Chariton, Ian Goodrum, Webster Tarpley, George Eliason, Gerald Horne, Thom Hartmann, Alan MacLeod, Juan Cole, Lauren Steiner, Alexander Mercouris, As’ad Abukhalil, Stephen Lendman, Gerald Celente, Shoban Saxena, Mike Papantonio, Ryan Christian, Kim Ives, Lee Fang, Lee Stranahan, Sarah Stillman, Tyrel Ventura, Ghassan Kadi, Kim Iverson, Mark Crispin Miller, Peter Kuznick, Dan Cohen, Timo Al-Farooq, Phillip Giraldi, James Fallows, Whitney Webb and James Corbett.

Independent Media Platforms:

[Each of the below will aggressively challenge main corporate media. They include primarily progressive voices, some mixed-source and even some esoteric perspectives. It’s up to you who is seeking reason and balance to decide where you place value.]

Wikileaks, Consortium News, Consortium News Live (YouTube), ProPublica, Pushback, Moon of Alabama, Black Agenda Report, Common Dreams, Push Back, Fault Lines Radio, Scott Ritter News, Progressive Soapbox, Veterans for Peace, Black Lives Matter, Redacted Tonight, CodePink, theAnalysis-news, Anonymous, GrayZone Project, VIPS, Counterpunch, acTVism Munich, The Saker, Truthdig (archive), Watchdog Media Institute, radindiemedia.com, thecradle.co, The Dive with Jackson Hinkle, DW News, Al Jazeera-English, Asia Times Online, The Nation, The Progressive, Black Socialists of America, Anti-War.com, Useful Idiots, George Galloway’s Mother of All Talk Shows, The Jimmy Dore Show, The Black Alliance for Peace, RT-On Contact, IndependentLeft.News, Now This, Sputnik Radio, Richard Medhurst, Eyes-Left Podcast, Our Revolution, Globetrotter News, Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Moderate Rebels, teleSUR English, Empire Files, Moment of Clarity, Useful Idiots, Jacobin, Going Underground on RT, Media Roots Radio, The Duran, Breaking Points, Franc Analysis, ShadowProof, FireDogLake (archive), Ring of Fire, Truthout, venezuelanalysis.com, Watching The Hawks, The Left Coaster, Anti-Media, Richard Medhurst, Haiti Liberte, The John Bachelor Show, Geopolitics Alert, RT-CrossTalk, @TheWarNerd, Status Coup, The New Atlas, China Daily Global Edition, The Keiser Report, leftvoice.org, New Eastern Outlook, Southfront, Tim Black TV, The Real News Network, Spa and Brawl — The Progressive World, Primo Nutmeg, The New Republic, The Robust Opposition, Russia Insider, Political Vigilante, The Dive, The Last American Vagabond, Oriental Review, Transcend Media Service, Peter B. Collins Show, Dissident Voice, The Convo Couch, Data For Black Lives, Whiskey Bar (archive), Media Lens, Off-Guardian, Moscow Times, The Zero Hour, Chapo Trap House, Lionel Nation (Lionel has an unusual “Conspiratorium” — lol), Brave New Films, Intercept, The Vanguard, The Outer Light, Talk-Radio, MrMBB333 (for strange phenomenon), America-Friendly Dictator Trading Cards. Lots of great independent writers on https://scheerpost.com/ https://substack.com/ https://medium.com/ and https://www.mintpressnews.com/ Check these sites to see who they feature.

Finally, I suppose I should include myself, especially since nobody else will — lol. Below, is my writing site:

I’m sure there are many names I’ve missed. If you have recommendations, please offer them — thanks!

Additional Reading

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Michael Weddle

Founder of Boston’s Climate Change Band; former NH State Representative; Created Internet’s 1st Anti-War Debate; Supporter of Bernie Sanders & Standing Rock!