Hi everyone,
I am looking for a reliable European news service and would love to hear what you use and why.
I am based in Germany, so European sources that work well here are especially interesting to me. I am not looking for newsletters or RSS setups, just full news platforms or apps.
A few questions to guide your answers:
- Which European news service do you use most often?
- Is it free or paid, and if paid, do you feel the cost is justified?
- Do you use it mainly for European news, global coverage, or both?
- How would you describe its editorial approach (neutral, opinionated, investigative, etc)?
I am aiming to get a broader European perspective.
Practical comments about usability, quality of reporting, or specific strong areas are very welcome.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
I’m testing Kagi News (using it along with other news) and I can cautiously recommend it by now. First of all, do read their About page. If this doesn’t speak to you, then I guess you can stop reading now. But for me, it hits the nail on the head.
It’s basically an AI driven news aggregator. It’s one of the rare cases where I think it’s AI done right. Kagi News works with a community curated list of news sources (RSS Feeds) and summarizes them into max. 12 topics per day per category. Most of it is open source and you can contribute to the sources with PRs if you want. I created a separate category for my country for instance.
What I like about it: They try to be as neutral as possible. For example they have a section “Perspectives” where you will find the perspective of all involved stakeholders. It’s no-nonsense, fact driven news that doesn’t waste my time.
You mentioned you want an “European news service”. Kagi is located in the US, but most of the news sources they use for the “Europe” category are European. But if you’re missing any you can always add them with a PR :)
It’s quite a new service (still in Beta) and since it uses an AI summarizer, you should always stay critical and double check the sources. I’m using it since a few months now and I always checked with other sources to see if it gets the things right. It’s doing a pretty good job and made a lot of progress.
I basically use it when commuting to see whats new in the world. The once-a-day approach keeps it at a healthy amount. When a specific topic really interests me, I dive deeper and also look for other sources.
For UK news (I still think of us as Europe 😭) I like the independent outlet Novara Media. It’s free and they survive off user donations. They’re certainly left leaning but so am I
The UK may have left the EU, but Europe is more than just political structures… it’s about shared values, culture, and a common future. I’m confident that the UK will rejoin the EU one day, whether it takes five, ten, or more years. Until then, I’ll always see our British friends as part of the European family. Thanks for recommending Novara Media, I’ll check it out!
I think Europe is about the location of seas, oceans and plate boundaries.
Try the Bylines network.
El Pais - English edition NOS - Netherlands The Guardian - UK / global BBC - UK Euronews Only the Guardian is a subscription (absolutely worth it). Together they provide a balanced view.
Downvote for BBC - state propaganda/MI6 vehicle. And generally just shit journalism. Grauniad is pretty shite too - the crossword is ok.
What do you read then? (To get a balanced information load, it is important to also read newspapers, that do not fit the bubble that one lives in. And to say that the BBC is propaganda and an MMI six vehicle, makes me think what you would do if the BBC wouldn’t be available in the UK. I fear for the quality of the newspapers that will be left over then.).
I like Deutschlandfunk for my basic news. They have their own app Dlf Nachrichten (German, free), as has Reuters, which I use as a secondary source for international news (English, 1 €/week). When I have more time or want to follow something specific, I go for the web versions of newspapers, mostly Süddeutsche Zeitung (German, subscription) and The Guardian (English, mostly free). For European politics Euractiv is pretty good (English/German/others, free).
I know you said no RSS but you should consider it. It’s really the only way to handle more than a handful of news sources. I’ve been very happy with Inoreader for years, which allows me to manage over a hundred sources, some of which I only want to monitor for specific subjects.
Excellent points,just a few things added:
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Sueddeutsche has a english section as well that also includes some articles from the Atlantic
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TAZ.de is also an option,it’s free but mostly German (but also has a small English section). It’s bit like the Guardian but more left leaning.
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heise.de is a reasonably good news source for tech news both in German and English
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France24.com is a good english speaking choice for world news,especially as they often cover topic not heavily covered by other news outlets,e.g. things in Africa,Asia,etc.
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Sadly only German speaking but ver good: Der Falter (falter.at) from Austria.
There is a directory of European newspapers at newspapers-europe.eu.
Another protip: You can get registered in a library and a lot of them provide free access to a LOT of magazines to read for free online. And you often don’t even have to live close to said library to register and can register online.
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I’ve just downloaded the apps for Deutschlandfunk, Reuters, and the Guardian to explore them in more detail. Euractiv and Süddeutsche Zeitung are next on my list. Thanks for the thoughtful recommendations!
Reuters tookoil money to push a narrative. I like the AP.
Ground News seems too good to be true, fearful of how it changes up. Canadian though.
Do you have a source for the oil money story? I’m not dismissing it, just would like to follow up on it.
Nrk.no, for the most part. It’s in norwegian, though. You can probably shove it through a translator.
Free, reasonably neutral, covers everything from local, domestic, and global news
