“Wherever do you find those wonderful reads each day?”
Every now and again, a variation of the above question comes in from readers. Since it’s a summer Friday -- and really, it’s not like anything else is going on in the world -- I shall give the people what they want.
I’ve been doing a daily reading list for more than 20 years, since I started as a trader way back in the mid-’90s. It eventually evolved to become seven days a week on my blog.
Some of you may be wondering, “How difficult can pulling a dozen headlines off a feeder be?” Turns out, it is harder to do and takes longer than it might seem.
Here are the rules that guide my hand each day:
Curate viciously.
There is an embarrassment of riches in terms of online content. This creates an “abundance” challenge.
My lists are defined as much by what is included as excluded. What you choose to omit is crucial to making any list special. In the early days, I tried inclusivity, and the list got longer and longer. I gave up that pointless exercise years ago, when Google News made it wholly unnecessary.
I rarely use anything from the front pages of major newspapers or news sites, on the assumption that many readers have seen it already. Overly popular links on Twitter are also tossed. Most read, most popular, most e-mailed lists -- nearly every site has a variation of this, and they occasionally point to something worthwhile AND relatively unknown. But for the most part, I steer clear of those.
In the wee hours of the morning, I open 50 or so tabs from a browser folder. Just about every major media outlet is included. Each afternoon, I do the same with a different 40 or so; these are more esoteric, special-interest and topic-specific. Alternating between a broad, wide scope and a narrow, deep one allows for a good mix.