Pulse your way to news freedom

I stopped watching TV news years ago. It was a simple issue of lack on content compared to the time commitment. I also gagged on the "News Personalities" and their comments to each other. In addition, I don't equate believability with personal charm and appearance. But that left few alternatives. About the same time, I quit reading the daily newspaper. That was more a matter of cost vs. the pile of trash accumulated.

Part of my "news" came from listening to the radio. But that went out the window, so to speak, when "talk" radio took over. So what kept me from being a news "isolationist?" The Internet of course. But there was a problem. I could simply read the news stories from the same old outlets online or wait around until the news became history and read about it in a book. Part of the problem with reading the news online is the vast difference in the point of view of the various outlets. I do get tired of propaganda and I really don't feel a need to follow the daily activities of the President of the United States.

Now I finally have a solution. News aggregators. The most elegant of these is a free app for iPad, IPhone and Android called Pulse. When it was first introduced the concept was great and the easy to use, but the offerings were limited. Now, the catalog of sources is reasonably vast. I am finally free to choose what I read without being subjected to news personalities. I can also choose to ignore politics, if that is what I want, and concentrate on tech news and science, my real interests.

Pulse does for news readers what the blog aggregators do for blogs, turns the news into a manageable and focused activity rather than an intrusion and a bother. It also gives me one more reason for getting rid of my TV again (we didn't have a TV for years but got sucked back into having one a few years ago). Our home is now TV free again.

Is Pulse perfect? No, I will keep looking for anything better, but right now free is persuasive.