<p>So I'm haven't been the most informed when it comes to current events and affairs of the local, state, national, and international level. I'll be going off to college in less than a month and I was wondering if there were any quick ways of becoming more cognizant of politics (with the election coming soon) and current events in general. I want to be able to have an intelligent conversation with my college peers about these things, and not knowing these things (at least not to a full extent) is kind of embarrassing. Any help?</p>
<p>Well, watching the news or reading news websites should help. I’d recommend trying to stay fairly non-partisan with your news. CNN should have an election/politics section of their website if that’s what you’re interested in.</p>
<p>You could watch the news, if you can bare all the flaws. MSNBC has a strong liberal bias. The debates are all lopsided because they only invite the most idiotic Republicans to contribute. Fox News isn’t even news. It’s absolute garbage, so avoid it like the plague. And I swear CNN was made for ■■■■■■■ and dementia patients.</p>
<p>On second thought, just watch a lot of CSPAN</p>
<p>Pick a couple of news sites to frequent, maybe a generic network of your choosing like Fox or CNN, then something independent like the Drudge Report, and then something like maybe even the politics subreddit of Reddit.</p>
<p>Purchasing a subscription to The Economist was the single best investment I’ve made in the last year. It’s also surprisingly entertaining. Following world politics is almost like watching a soap opera. 
I appreciate their international, non-US-centric point of view, but that may not be what you are looking for. And most of their coverage has a clear liberal bias. </p>
<p>Whichever source you choose to get your information from, I’d recommend that you don’t try to catch up with all of politics all at once. It’s better to be well-informed about a smaller set of topics. (For example, you could choose to focus on state and national politics and not worry about international affairs for the time being.) You can’t have a meaningful political conversation until you know an issue in fair detail.</p>
<p>Do you have a smart phone? Well, whether you do or not, I use Google Reader. It puts all the news I want into one place by letting you subscribe to whatever news website you want. Makes things easy.</p>
<p>Read the online editions of big-name newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post, etc.). These tend to be better than the cable news networks at being less biased (there is no such thing as “unbiased,” all human beings have a bias). CNN is the most middle-of-the-road of the big news networks, and I actually like it more than any of the other choices, but it does have its faults</p>
<p>For online sites, I recommend Politico. I find it decently centrist in its reporting. Do not watch a lot of C-SPAN, the boredom will make your brain collapse into itself and implode. Once actual presidential debates occur, watch those. If you’re a big user of facebook or twitter, follow some of the above mentioned groups so the updates will show up on your pages.</p>
<p>Try realclearpolitics.com It links to all sorts of articles from all political opinions…</p>
<p>C-SPAN and .gov websites are your best bet.</p>
<p>Check local public radio stations. Some just have music, but others specialize in news and information. Mine even broadcasts BBC world service overnight. It’s informative but also interesting. The presenters do have British accents, but they’re also really human. By the way, they have Facebook and Twitter, and apparently lots of people use them.</p>
<p>realclearpolitics.com is the way to go</p>
<p>Listen to your local npr station. They invite guests who have different political views.</p>
<p>For news about the U.S., I actually prefer international news sites like Al Jazeera and BBC. Pretty straightforward coverage. They also explain certain things about the U.S. from a foreigner’s point of view, someone who is very new to the concept, which could be great if you want to understand EVERYTHING.</p>
<p>Also, don’t be thrown off by the name, but the Christian Science Monitor is probably my favorite news source. It’s actually very unbiased.</p>
<p>I basically just watch CNN whenever I’m surfing the web on my phone (Doing it right now). I took Government both semesters last year and now the news is just extremely interesting.</p>
<p>All you really have to do is watch the news for a week, and whenever you have a question about ANYTHING, Google it.</p>
<p>BBC is the best to watch/read online articles. They have many other shows other than the world news to help you gain in depth knowledge of lots of intl shiz, so id go for BBC Channel :)</p>
<p>I prefer nytimes. I used to read bbc.</p>
<p>it really doesn’t matter. as long as you don’t get your feed from fox news, you’re good.</p>
<p>Study finance and economics. If you want to know how a car works, you open up the hood and look at the engine. If you want to know how politics works, you look at financial interests and who is paying for who’s campaign, what’s going on with cost of living and natural resources, etc.</p>
<p>MSNBC/FOX/CNN/NYT etc. won’t teach you anything about politics and will eliminate the common sense you arrived with. There are political experts and there are people who are involved in the whole “fox vs msnbc” feud, and the former generally has a hard time taking the latter seriously.</p>
<p>As for your college peers striking up intelligent political conversations, here’s what to expect:</p>
<p><em>19-year-old wearing no shirt with whipped cream all over his nipples bumps into you drunk/stoned and tells you to vote for Obama</em></p>
<p><em>End of conversation</em></p>
<p>Oh how I wish I were joking…</p>
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Only if you know how to use Google effectively. Otherwise you’ll end up getting your information from some idiot blog.</p>
<p>Your taxes pay for a lot of good data. Take advantage of that.</p>
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Or msnbc.</p>
<p>I’m very liberal, and usually I watch CNN. One day I flipped on msnbc and the show was “PoliticsNation” with Al Sharpton. After watching 10 minutes of it I arrived at the conclusion that msnbc is just as bad as Fox News.</p>
<p>^^Nah, I’m good. I’m not driving all the way to the library everytime I want to look something up. That’s a primitive way of doing things. If you want something good to read, fine. But why the heck would I go to the library? They don’t even have up to date information about what’s currently going on in the world.</p>
<p>And I’m only assuming you meant library by the taxes comment. I maybe be wrong.</p>
<p>If you want to know what’s happening in Syria, just Google “What’s happening in Syria?” There’s millions of places to look from, you can go to multiple sources to check if your information is right. I honestly think if you just sit down and watch a news station like CNN or MSNBC (DON’T WATCH FOX. IT’S EVIL), while doing random other stuff, you’ll absorb enough information to sound competent in college. That’s how I did it. The only online news I read is Yahoo News and Google News (I KNOW YAHOO ISN’T REAL NEWS, I DON’T WANNA HEAR IT. CELEBRITY NEWS IS COOL SOMETIMES TOO), and I don’t read it to sound smart. I just read it cause it’s interesting and it gives me a break from the serious news on CNN.</p>
<p>P.S. DON’T WATCH FOX. IT’S EVIL. MSNBC is kinda of bad too, but Fox is just evil.</p>