Buzzfeed is a very mixed bag. They do some good reporting, but it's buried under all the fluff and nonsense. But on occasion, you'll find a good long-form piece. Or rather, someone else finds it for me, I usually end up there via a social media tip.

Raw Story is reliable enough that I subscribe to their email list.

Buzzfeed is the type of website that when they make good content, you hear about it because people are going "Hey, look at this, Buzzfeed actually made a good article"

EXACTLY! It's kind of like "The Blaze" that way - I've been gobsmacked to find well-written straight news there from time to time.

Every so often, a site you'd rather not post will be the only source for a story worth telling. In those moments, if it so happens that it's a Buzzfeed piece, one might still go ahead and post it without worrying that it will have been bogus, badly reported on, and humiliating. I posted a Buzzfeed link a couple of months ago and I've almost stopped flinching and wincing over it.

If it's Business Insider, though, don't even think of it. I'll always remember that once, when I'd been tempted enough to post a Business Insider link, someone described it as Buzzfeed with a Forbes skin. That impression stuck. Thing is, Buzzfeed at least has editors, even if they're intent on using their talents for evil instead of good. When Alternet tries to do reporting without editors of any kind, it's quite often anti-factual garbage whose falsehoods seem calculated expressly to gin up outrage. Might as well be Red State with their overriding concern being not to let facts get in the way of a good hate rant. They're better when they carry other outfits' choicest pieces.

Raw Story often means Agence France Press, and so carries itself like a major news agency quite often. If I'm especially wary of them on their own content, it's because with a little digging you can often find the sources that they're cribbing from, which're very often better.

Oh, Raw Story is great for original sources. Alternet makes me cringe a lot but they are often well-sourced, even if shrill. Slate - a little more careful, a little less shrill, but it's certainly not embarrassed about it's slant.

But yes, often the nature of the topic will force a partisan or sketchy source as a starting point. Fortunately, the platform allows us to bolster those links with something more - and if you like, you could create a native snap and write a better story under your own byline compiled from various sources.

But come to think of it, I've found RT.Com to be good - as long as it has nothing at all to do with Russian foreign policy interests, or if you actually WANT the official Russian line for some reason.