Morning Brief: World
Free Alternative: The NYT Morning
First FT Americas
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Benefits: Roundup coverage of major headlines across all topics, with mild preference given to subjects in national politics and culture. One-stop newsletter to get caught up on the most pressing news of the day, regardless of sector.
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Downside: Not meant as an aid to any professional or academic interests, but rather as a substitute for cable news.
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FT’s top news stories from the Americas, plus analysis and commentary on the day's biggest global stories
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Downside: Some readers might find the dense format of the newsletter overwhelming, as it packs a substantial amount of info
GLOBAL ROUNDUP
About: These daily newsletters offer a broad view of the world, they are the starting point to morning reading, offering a sense of what’s important across countries, industries, and thematic areas.
General overviews are important to keep a reader well rounded and aware of trends and events that may not be directly within their focus but is still impactful or a broader topic of conversations.
Foreign Policy World
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Offers a comprehensive overview of major global developments and their implications, including expert analysis on international affairs, geopolitics, economics, and security.
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Downside: Coverage from across the world, while focusing on local events, is often on a random assortment of topics and has a minimal impact on American foreign policy.
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Concise overview of Bloomberg's economic policy coverage that strikes a balance between policy and financial news.
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Downside: Summaries can lose breadth of accumulated knowledge if full stories aren't read. Selected stories can feel a bit desperate or stale, partly due to Bloomberg's naturally more financial coverage.
CORE ROUNDUP
About: Thematic overviews roundup the most important stories from that news cycle on a specific region or topic area. These newsletters will often summarize that publication’s most important stories for the day, giving you a sampler of what’s going on across a specific topic.
These expose the reader to educationally valuable stories and sub-focuses they’d otherwise not click on without a high time commitment.
FT International Morning Headlines
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Daily roundup of headlines across the FT's different coverage areas.
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Downside: Can be difficult to comprehend when read given the lack of context or content for any story
AGGREGATOR
About: Aggregators roundup article links, often providing just the headlines. These are useful for outsourcing curation of niche stories aligned with your core interest. These aggregators are also useful for gaining broader situational awareness even if it's just a trend or event is gaining coverage
THEMATIC TARGETED
About: Targeted newsletters are formatted similarly to thematic overviews with selected stories synthesized into their core details mixed together with some relevant stats, blurbs, or by-lines from across the focus area. The major difference is that thematic overviews cover everything in a broad area, targeted newsletters look at a specific trend, sub-region, or sector in greater depth. These are often used by professionals in specific spaces to stay up to date with their fields.
East Asia
Your Week in Asia
East Asia Bulletin
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A newsletter on the political, security, and economic issues facing East Asia.
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A weekly lineup of Asia's biggest business, economic, and political events.
South Asia
Azadi Briefing
FP South Asia Brief
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Weekly update on developments in India and its neighbors.
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Analyzes the key issues in Afghanistan and explains why they matter.
Europe
RFE Wider Europe
Politico Brussels
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POLITICO’s must-read briefing on what's driving the day in Brussels.
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Focuses on the key issues concerning the EU, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with neighbors.
Africa
FP Africa Brief
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Essential analysis of the stories shaping geopolitics on the continent.
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Eastern Europe
Balkan Insight Daily
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Key insights from the Balkans and surrounding region.
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LATAM
FP Latin America Brief
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One-stop digest of politics, economics, and culture.
Eurasia
The Week in Russia
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Dissects the key developments in Russia over the previous week and offers some of the takeaways going forward.
MENA
Al Monitor Daily Briefing
Week in the Middle East
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Coverage from across the region with a daily morning digest of all our top stories.
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Catch up on our coverage of the region, all in one place.
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ANALYSIS
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About: Aggregators Often coming from substack or independent publishers, niche newsletters will do deep dives into specific areas, often focusing on a single topic for extensive exploration.
These are great for gaining exposure to new ideas, impactful people’s analysis, and combinations between areas of focus that are not usually looked at together. When well chosen, good horizon expanders take you from being well informed to having interesting takes yourself
Substack: America Explained
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A British expert on American foreign policy weighs into the United State’s most important political and foreign policy debates, analyzing the strategies of key agents in political and diplomacy decision-making.
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Downsides: Purposeful left-wing political bias and foreign perspectives on American politics leave cultural norms and experiential contributions lacking.
Niche Horizon
About: Aggregators Weekly overviews are newsletters that come either once or twice a week and do a combination of aggregation, synthesis, and analysis for you. For the busy professional this can be a great way to tie the news together or to catch up on the week if (and when) one’s days do not allow them to get to all of their newsletters.