> Note that Der Spiegel is considered a top notch news source.

By who? Certainly not by me ...

Out of interest is it a bad news source? I always thought it was more of a conservative opinion magazine?

What are good news sources in Germany?

You have to understand that some circles of the german internet avantgarde have a beloved Feindbild [1] when in comes to the Spiegel (google "ehemaliges Nachrichtenmagazin" [ironic "former news journal"]).

It's not a tabloid and people read it [2]. The online page is clickbait under the fold but the first two/three article will usually offer a good and conscience overview. If that's a virtue is another question. Other sites have less gossip or a different point of view, but the headline articles are usually the same on all major online news outlets nowadays.

If you want more serious news maybe faz.net [3] is worth a look.

[1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Feindbild

[2] http://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/165258/umfrage...

[3] http://www.faz.net/

Spiegel went from investigative journalism decades ago to publishing very shallow and (in case of its online version) click-baity articles. Süddeutsche is certainly more insightful.

But at least it is safe to say that Spiegel is not much politically biased on a whole.

All of the german journalism did that.

I can't tell you which magazine or news paper never lied or copied or makes a hell lot of propaganda. I mean listen to our radio stations, they make the whole scandal less painful and de Maizre will be our hero.

I mean hello??? In Germany and In America people should be brought to jail for doing such things. Its directly against the german and the american way of "democracy", whatever that means at that time.

http://www.tagesschau.de/ http://www.faz.net/

>tagesschau

Praise the glorious leaders!

Seriously, Tagesschau is way too close to the government to be considered a reliable news source and they often under-report on things that could put CDU/SPD in a bad light.

Tagesschau? Really? To often they show pictures from wrong places and have a lot of hoax. Just google for "tagesschau falschmeldungen". I personaly trust Spiegel more... but thats only my opinion ;)

Googling that brings you to Putins fans and islamophobes. Googling that with Spiegel brings you to Spiegel Online...well I don't know. I'll stay with the tagesschau for my daily 8PM news overview and look for details somewhere on the net avoiding Spiegel Online. Can't do anything bad this way ;)

As said, its just my opinion (and iam not a Putin fan or any fan of any politican out there). And i also look the 8PM news at Tagesschau, but, as you said by yourself, its always good to get more details somewhere else (SPON or not)

It's always a good idea to get your news from various sources and then make up your own opinion.

The sources listed here a certainly not bad.

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/ http://www.freitag.de/

Would be enough to look up the first 3 editors of this article. Rudolf Augstein would turn in his grave if he knew what happend to der Spiegel.

Is the Economist considered a good news source? (OK, its better than the average tabloid or Fox news type trash, I'll give it that).

Absoluely. Both their news and their opinion pieces are excellent, and I would recommend a subscription to the print magazine, for a good weekly summary of world news, albeit with a slight UK slant.

One interesting thing is that their columns have no by-lines, so the writers are anonymous, to prevent readers being prejudiced or biased by the identity of the journalist. http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/09/ec...

You're absolutely correct. Just a slight nitpick:

  One interesting thing is that their columns have no by-lines

There are two exceptions to that: Special reports (which usually are highly insightful and informative) and the parting article of the editor in chief

Yes it is.

Not true