I guess this means no more public humiliations while waiting to order an El Vez.

Allow me to explain.

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What would it be?

I ask the question because I came upon the very same one on LinkedIn, a social networking service for professionals.

My go-to website for global news is BBC Online. Here's the answer I posted on LinkedIn:

My first choice as an online news destination is BBC Online. The site is staffed 24/7. The Beeb's website can draw on its TV and radio reporters around the world, and those working for foreign-language services such as the Urdu-language one targeting Pakistan.

Besides breaking news in text form, the Beeb offers high-quality analysis and multimedia.

The Beeb also has the advantage of not being American -- not that there's anything wrong with being American! :)

But with the NYT or CNN, to just use as examples, you're getting an American take on international news, not a true global perspective.

I find stories I can't find anywhere else on the Beeb, and that makes it my first choice.

Scanning the 80 responses in addition to my own, the Beeb appears to be the runaway favourite.

Without doing an in-depth analysis, Google News does fairly well (other aggregation services were also mentioned, such as Yahoo News, Digg and so on. Some fellow named a newspaper aggregator named PressDisplay).

CNN has its fans, as does the Guardian, the Economist plus Reuters and AP.

Some honourable mentions include the International Herald Tribune, the Times Online and the Financial Times.

A question to readers of this blog: What website would you recommend as the ultimate one-stop-shopping experience for global online news?

Your Nigerian-born cab driver is listening to soccer on his car's radio and talking with great relish about players and coaches who have been killed upon return to their homelands after flubbing a key match. :)

Chechnya had become synonymous with 'hell' for most of the 1990s. Even three years ago, people wondered if the nationalistic Islamic insurgency against the Russian-backed national government could ever be defeated.

Today, the capital Grozny is a changed place, thanks in part to the ruthless hand of Chechnya's President Ramzan A. Kadyrov and extraordinary investment in fixing the shattered city.

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In TV and movies, sex scenes are getting explicit enough to the point where some are wondering if the actors are actually doing it or not. At least one critic is bandying about the phrase "hard-core art."

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Decidedly middle-class NYT reporter Solomon Moore got some first-hand experience in how the police of Salisbury, N.C. go about busting street gangs.

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The back story on how the third version of director Ridley Scott's classic sci-fi film came to be. Hint: commerce trumped art!

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If you ever find yourself passing through Cheticamp, N.S., remember that number. Tune your car's radio to that particular FM station, for it is there that you can pick up CKJM, the local community radio station.

From that page, you can access the live stream. They basically had Cajun-style music on Tuesday afternoon, but the tunes were all good!

Kevin S. sent me this on the top 10 hand gestures you better get right.

I'm listening to a 5 p.m. newscast on CBC Radio 2 on Monday afternoon.

The lead story is about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's address to the United Nations. The announcer intones that here are the Iranian president's words, as offered through a translator:

"We have 80,000 workers in Canada (blah, blah, blah) ..."

And that left me immediately asking myself the following question: Why is Buzz Hargrove translating for Ahmadinejad?

He wasn't. The announcer apologized for the error. The clip from the Canadian Auto Workers president came later as part of an item on the just-launched GM strike in the U.S.

The latest survey of government openness finds the same-old, same-old -- namely, that you have to pry even basic information out of a bureaucrat's cold, dead hand.

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Blackwater, a U.S. security contractor operating in Iraq, is partly back on the job there days after a shootout that left 11 Iraqi civilians dead.

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From the BBC:

The verdict has been criticised as an attack on the freedom of press

A court in the Indian capital Delhi has sentenced four journalists to four months in prison after they accused a former chief justice of corruption.

The court ruled that the allegations, which appeared in an India tabloid newspaper, Mid Day, constituted a contempt of court.

The journalists have stood by their story and say they will appeal against their sentences.

The verdict has been criticised as an attack on the freedom of press.

From the BBC: Prosecutors in Russia have charged a former Chechen politician with being an accomplice in the 2006 murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

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Mary Mapes, who lost her job as a producer with CBS News' 60 Minutes over Memogate, defends Dan Rather -- who is suing their mutually former employer -- and the story itself.

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They have time to do stuff like conduct bizarre surveillance operations.

A Detroit-area couple, the Dorfmans, have being spying on Gordie and Colleen Howe as part of a dispute. In return, the Howes have filed suit against them:

From thestar.com:

The Howes allege the Dorfmans have had a camera snapping photos of their house every five seconds – more than 17,000 photos a day.

The Dorfmans say they believe the Howes have used their home for business purposes since 2006 in violation of homeowner association rules and township law.

John Cruickshank, new publisher of CBC News, sees his job as being focused on strategy -- but people at the John/Front bunker can expect to see him in the newsrooms there.

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From the BBC:

A cartoonist in Bangladesh has been jailed for a month after the government said his drawings had insulted Muslims.

Bangladesh's home minister said the cartoonist, Arifur Rahman, had hurt the sentiments of the people.

The leading Bangla-language newspaper which published the offending cartoons, Prothom Alo, has apologised and says it has sacked an editor.

Islam is Bangladesh's state religion and past governments have banned publications for insulting Muslim.

The country's religious traditions are moderate but some people believe conservatives are becoming more influential.

Some exceedingly rare photos of SS officers at the Auschwitz death camp enjoying some leisure time after a hard day of gassing Jews and other "undesirables" have surfaced after more than 60 years.

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From the BBC:

There were violent protests in Delhi after the TV report

An Indian television news channel has been taken off air for a month after broadcasting a false "sting" which led to riots and a woman being jailed.

India's Broadcasting Ministry said the report on Live India had been "defamatory, deliberate and false".

Delhi teacher Uma Khurana was accused of forcing students into prostitution. Police later said the report was faked.

Live India is the first news channel to be banned in India. The station says it was misled by its reporter.

The case follows a number of other so-called stings in which people allege they have been framed and has led to renewed calls for India's media to be regulated.

Experts blame a highly competitive media environment where 24-hour news channels are fighting for revenue and viewers' attention.

For background, see this post: The wacky world of Indian TV news.

Here's a 2006 BBC story: Sting journalism under fire

On Wednesday afternoon, I found myself looking northward at the Niagara River from a viewpoint at Queenston Heights.

A CityTV truck is off to my right. An older fellow, speaking in German-tinged English, asked me if I knew why the TV truck is there.

"They got a tip: The Americans are set to invade again," I deadpanned.

His eyes popped open.

From globeandmail.com:

An increasing number of Canadians are reading their newspapers online, according to the latest readership numbers released yesterday by the Newspaper Audience Databank Inc.

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From CP via globeandmail.com:

Newspaper executive Michael Sifton has been appointed president and chief executive officer of Sun Media Corp., owner Quebecor Media Inc. announced yesterday.

Mr. Sifton's appointment is effective immediately, the Montreal multimedia company said in a news release.

Quebecor Media's CEO Pierre Francoeur said Mr. Sifton, a former chairman of The Canadian Press, "brings a unique combination of a long family history in Canadian newspaper publishing, and extensive experience to address the challenges in today's tumultuous media industry."

"I could not imagine a more highly qualified successor for the positions I have occupied at Sun Media," Mr. Francoeur said.

Quebecor acquired Sifton's Osprey Media, which primarily operates small-market daily and community newspapers, earlier this summer.

On Wednesday, veteran editor and publisher CBC named John Cruickshank as the new publisher of CBC News.

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Dan Rather launched a US$70 million lawsuit Wednesday against his old employer CBS, which forced him out over the memogate affair. Rather thinks he has evidence that will vindicate him.

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From TheStar.com:

Sarah Fulford, 33, will have the challenging task of refreshing a formula that has worked for four decades and bringing it into the brave new media world of the Internet and the 21st century.

Fulford is the chosen successor of John Macfarlane, a dominant figure in Canadian magazine journalism for the past 35 years, who is stepping down after 15 years as editor of TL.

"This has been in the works for a while," Macfarlane says. "I felt it was time for a change."

In case you're wondering, Sarah is indeed the daughter of writer Robert Fulford, who once edited Saturday Night magazine.

Romenesko linked to a few other good tidbits in reaction to the NYT TimesSelect decision in addition to the WSJ item immediately below.

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From PaidContent.org via Romenesko:

Murdoch gave his strongest statements to date the WSJ.com will go free following the purchase. He says they haven't made up their mind completely, but that the company doesn't feel it would hurt subscription revenues and that any lost revenue would be more than made up from increased readership and search engine traffic.

--When asked about Wall St.'s fears that News Corp might make another big, costly move, Murdoch mused "well I might make another good move", referring to MySpace and Fox News, both of which were deemed foolish, but have turned out rather well.

Since last summer, I've been searching for a replacement copy of Nigeria 70: The Definitive Story of 1970s Funky Lagos.

An e-mail showed up in my inbox tonight: Discogs had a seller!

I exult! I click on the link!

I find ... nothing. Here's the message I got:

Found 0 items matching Release: 578408

I am a broken and crushed man as I write this. However, I will recover -- and the search will continue.

One British activist thinks "the end is nigh" approach on the dangers of abrupt climate change might be turning people off.

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The Iraqis are mightily pissed with Blackwater USA, a private security firm whose trigger-happy ways left nine Iraqis dead. Iraq wants to revoke the company's operating licence, but can it do so?

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Former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Allan Greenspan has clarified a comment in his new memoir about how "the Iraq War is largely about oil." The funny thing, however, is how the Bushies can't bring themselves to say that oil had anything to do with the war.

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As reported earlier this summer, the New York Times will stop charging for access to columnists and will allow free searches of a large proportion of its archival material.

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