The best RSS feeds for following the news
RSS is still the simplest way to follow the news with no algorithm and no account. How it works, which feeds to pick, and how to subscribe to ours.
An RSS feed is a file a site publishes listing its most recent content in a standard format. Your reader checks it regularly and shows you what's new. Nobody decides for you what surfaces: the order is chronological, and you only see the sources you chose yourself.
Why RSS still matters
- No account, no profiling: the reader downloads a public file, the site has no idea who you are.
- No algorithm: nothing is hidden, nothing is boosted, nothing is "suggested".
- An open, stable format: the same feed works in any reader, and will keep working if you switch.
- You see everything a source publishes — useful for low-visibility desks that social platforms never push.
How to build a good set of feeds
The most common mistake is subscribing to thirty general feeds that all cover the same news, then giving up under the volume. A useful set mixes different layers rather than stacking equivalent sources.
- One or two continuous-stream sources so you miss nothing important: an agency wire or a general-news outlet.
- Topic feeds on the two or three subjects you actually follow — this is where RSS beats any social network.
- A local source, which large aggregators cover poorly by design.
- A source in another language, to see the same event told from another vantage point.
Choosing a reader
There are two families. Local readers keep your subscriptions on your device: nothing leaves your machine, but your list doesn't follow you between devices. Online readers sync subscriptions to an account, so you can pick up where you left off anywhere, at the cost of a third party knowing what you follow. Neither is better in the abstract: it's a trade-off between privacy and convenience.
In both cases, check before committing that the reader lets you export your subscriptions as OPML. It's a simple file listing your feeds, understood by every reader: as long as you can export it, switching tools takes two minutes and you lose nothing. A reader that won't export OPML locks you in — that's the one genuinely disqualifying criterion.
Our feeds
Lost in the Jungle publishes one general feed per language, plus one feed per section. The general feed carries everything we publish; section feeds carry only that category. All the links are reachable from our site plan, at the foot of every page.
Frequently asked questions
Do you need to pay or create an account to use RSS?
No. The feed itself is a free, public file. All you need is an RSS reader, and free ones exist on every platform. Some readers sell a subscription, but what you'd be paying for is their service, never the feed.
Is RSS dead?
No, but it went quiet. Google Reader's shutdown in 2013 cost it its mainstream audience, and many sites stopped advertising their link. The format was never discontinued, though: podcasts rest entirely on it, and most outlets still expose feeds even when they don't display them.
Related reading
- What is a media outlet?Guides
A media outlet isn't just a website or a paper: it's an organisation that gathers, checks, ranks and publishes. The definition, the functions and the limits of the word.
- How does Google News work?Guides
Google News aggregates, clusters and ranks articles it doesn't produce. What is actually known about how it works, and what no publisher can promise you.
- RSS feedGlossary
An RSS feed is a standard file listing a site's latest content. How it works, what it changes for the reader, and why it has survived.
- Print vs digital news: what the medium actually changesComparisons
Deadline versus rolling flow, a front page versus an algorithm, impossible correction versus permanent updating: what each medium gains and loses, without nostalgia.
- What is a digital media outlet?Guides
Publishing online changes the rhythm, the funding and the reader relationship — not the rules of journalism. What digital really transforms, and what it leaves alone.
- How does Google Discover work?Guides
Discover is a feed with no query: it suggests before you ask. How it differs from search, why its traffic is volatile, and what nobody outside knows.
- Google News vs Apple News: two ways of serving you the newsComparisons
One is open to the whole web and algorithm-driven, the other stays inside Apple's ecosystem and mixes in human curation. What really separates them, with no invented numbers.