This is how I like to get all my news and information in 2026. Writing it all down should help me sort, cut, and review my media diet. Maybe you'll find this useful too - if you like what I like anyway. This mega list is sorted best to merely good, starting with best:

Décrypteurs

Lately I've been very impressed with Décrypteurs on CBC Radio-Canada. This is a great weekly overview and discussion of Canadian tech, legislation, AI, and internet culture.

Last Week in AI

Last Week in AI is the best overall AI podcast with a broad overview of many topics.

About That

Andrew Chang has a great About That series on CBC News.

AI For Humans

AI For Humans is an entertaining and silly podcast with a focus on internet culture, business, and creative AI tools for music, film, art, and games.

Hacker News

This hackernews frontpage is a stripped down voting and commenting platform for tech news, tools, and business stories. Heavy focus on America. Over the years I've found its front page is consistently smart with far better comment quality and moderation than any other platform like it.

Super Data Science Podcast

The Super Data Science Podcast has the best long form computer science, corporate software, and AI interviews of any podcast. Just make sure you're interested in the person or topic instead of listening randomly. I especially recommend the "in case you missed it" monthly summaries.

Laurie Wired

I adore the Laurie Wired videos like How a Clever 1960s Memory Trick Changed Computing. At this point in my life I've heard all the mainstream fun stories about computer science and its history a dozen times. So it's extremely impressive how much I learn in each of her videos, partly because her specialties as a computer scientist are not mine whatsoever. Accurate and well researched. She's also beautiful which is a bonus but sometimes the cutesy goes a little overboard.

CBC Radio Canada

Perhaps unsurprisingly the best municipal and provincial mainstream news for me is CBC Radio Canada. Quebec really punches above its weight on culture, politics, and news reporting.

At Issue

The "At Issue" talks on CBC The National have some of my favorite journalists: Althia Raj, Andrew Coyne, and Chantal Hébert. Unfortunately Rosemary Barton can be a bad host at times but nobody is perfect. These journalists also pop up on lots of other podcasts and news channels like the Munk Debates.

Traditional Media

Often in the morning I'll peruse headlines from traditional media: CBC (Montreal and national), BBC, WSJ, NYT, Walrus, and Atlantic.

Consider the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect:

The phenomenon of a person trusting newspapers for topics which that person is not knowledgeable about, despite recognizing the newspaper as being extremely inaccurate on certain topics which that person is knowledgeable about.

This effect is extremely apparent to me with AI stories.

I try to get facts and events from these news outlets and not opinions or interpretations. For example when Carney recently announced an AI strategy I saw it on CBC but I skipped their "analysis" (likely written by an underpaid junior tech reporter) and just went straight to the source.

Sometimes an "analysis" article can be longer and written by an expert specialist journalist but that's rare.

Montreal AI ML Meetup

About once a month I go to this weekly meetup. There's always an interesting mix of Montrealers: students, professionals, developers, and entrepreneurs from all kinds of industries. Live meetups are a great way to hear what real people in meatspace think about AI and which tools they like and use. Minus all the marketing and hype.

Montreal Non-Fiction Book Club

I've been going to this monthly meetup for a few years. A book every month is too much for me but I pick and choose several each year. I'm lucky to have found a smart group of people. We don't all agree but we're civil and upbeat even on difficult subjects. Reading a good book is one of the best ways to learn something new in depth.

The Rest is Science

Two great upbeat hosts talk about broad science and philosophy topics in surprising and mind bending ways. I especially recommend this episode about refrigeration.

Long Form Interviews

I watch interviews from Joe Rogan, Lex Fridman, Dwarkesh Patel, Sean Carroll's Mindscape, Cleo Abram, or Theo Von however some of these have questionable or boring (to me) choices of guests so I research guest bios before watching. If you want a long form interview with top political figures, computer scientists, entrepreneurs, or world class mathematicians and scientists then you must go where they go.

The Hub

The Hub is a not-for-profit that refuses to accept the Canadian journalism tax credit out of principle. This is the best right leaning Canadian news and politics source that I know of. However sometimes it's repetitive and everyone agrees with everyone a bit too much.

The Bridge

Peter Mansbridge is still at it with his The Bridge podcast. The pace is a bit slow but he regularly has on some of my favorite journalists like Althia Raj and Chantal Hébert with long informal chats about the latest Canadian news and issues.

Quanta

Quanta Magazine has the best written computer science, physics, and math deep dives that I know of. Sometimes I don't fully understand the more technical articles so reading takes some work. I especially recommend their year-end reviews titled "The Year in Computer Science" or "Physics" etc which can be more accessible. See also their videos.

Prof G

I listen to and watch a lot of Prof G like Prof G Markets and Raging Moderates though as I write this I'm reconsidering. Their non-stop focus on the failures of American politics is repetitive. This is the best source for smart left leaning (by American standards) coverage of American news, culture, and business analysis that I know of.

And... The Rest Get One Sentence

I still love all these but I'm limiting myself to a one sentence write-up. Still in order starting with my most liked:

• Two Minute Papers presents the very latest and most exciting computer science research and results with great visuals and positivity.
• Andrej Karpathy is a world class AI educator usually targeting smart non-technical people. See How I use LLMs.
• Optimist Economy podcast is a fun and mostly upbeat exploration of semi-technical economics topics focused on America.
• Yannic Kilcher does the best technical deep dives on computer science papers of anyone I've found yet.
• Scott Manley is an astrophysicist and programmer with the best analysis videos of space news that I know of.
• Practical Engineering has brilliantly produced explanations and physical demonstrations of so many civil engineering concepts.
• Front Burner podcast (CBC). Timely, regular, but superficial short episodes on the latest in mostly Canadian news and politics.
• Dave at Dave's Garage is an autistic programmer from the early days of Microsoft with a lot of good stories and very wise hot takes on the latest tech news, breaches, blunders, and fads.
• PBS News Hour is the best American, mainstream, professional, centre-left news outlet that I know of.
• Science Vs podcast is a bit basic and overproduced but fairly well researched skeptical deep dives into all types of science topics.
• Complex Systems podcast. Smart and technical discussions on institutions, technologies, finance, and government.
• Oh The Urbanity! explains urban planning concepts like infrastructure, cyclists, density.
• JJ McCullough is a gay conservative Canadian who covers a lot of curious Canadian topics like our 35 tribes or the Prime Minister tier list.
• Law Bytes podcast is by far my best source for Canadian law on internet and technology.
• Paige Saunders does excellent deep dives on Montreal and Toronto area transit and urban politics.
• All Gas No Brakes and Channel 5 have by far the most entertaining deep dives on raw and real American culture.
• The Plain Bagel gives a solid Canadian perspective on finance topics and news.
• Big Joel does deep dives on cultural topics like this one about Dr Phil.
• Decouple podcast. Nuclear energy. It has started to get a bit repetitive but I strongly recommend this video where the host made statements in parliament.
• The Beaverton is great! While it may be a satire website, in a strange way you can still divinate news and no-bullshit takes from here.
• Democracy Now would be a lot higher on this list for its consistency and rigor except it's also so depressing. Left leaning international and American news.
• Corecursive podcast. The best programmer interviews and programmer history of any podcast I know.
• Darknet Diaries podcast. This could be so much better if 60% of each episode were cut. Overly dramatic and produced, but absolutely the best dramatic and thrilling stories on hacking, breaches, and cybercrime.
• Asian Boss chooses a topic and Asian city and randomly interviews many people on the street extensively. It's the most accessible and interesting lens into Asian culture that I know of.
• Illinois Energy Prof has the best objective and digestible lectures on energy, economics, and physics.
• The Paikin Podcast also has some notable Canadian content like its interview with Danielle Smith though most of the time I find the content a bit bland.

No Longer Recommend

These are notable but I don't especially recommend them any more.

All In

The All In podcast used to be my go-to for right leaning American business, tech, and politics discussions. Learn how the ultra-rich think, live, and speak. Unfortunately the hosts got a taste of the Trump White House and gradually the episodes became unbearable to me. They failed to understand why Canadians are upset about "51st state" as their myopic analysis was strictly economic. My breaking point was when they were discussing America taking over Greenland as if it were a business deal.

Reddit

Reddit has become a toxic waste of time and bot wasteland since I first registered 16 years ago. For years I've been gradually winding down the time I spend on reddit. These days I most frequently visit /r/CanadaPublicServants and /r/ExperiencedDevs because I enjoy giving advice like this and this, and /r/canada and /r/montreal for some news. The larger the subreddit the less likely I am to subscribe to it because the foundations of the platform did not scale well nor can it handle 2026 AI spam.

I guess I don't generally recommend reddit any more, but had to include it because I still spend (too much) time there.

Conclusion

Not sure how many people will actually read all this. Well, it was a useful exercise anyway and I might do it again. I identified some media that I'm not following enough and some others I need to reduce.

Did I miss anything great? Let me know. And I hope you found some new media you like!