Add These 6 Niche & Trade Outlets to Your Weekly Reading List


Where do you get your news?

That’s a bit of a loaded question these days, but it’s an important one nonetheless. There’s no right or wrong answer, and there are nearly as many unique answers as there are people in the world.

Some people begin and end with local media: newspapers, TV, maybe a digital-only publication focused on hometown issues. Others prefer (or at least include) national print, digital, TV, and/or radio. Still others trust the social media algorithms — and friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and random people influenced by them — to serve up the most relevant information every day.

These are all well and good as far as they go. Everything in moderation; multiple sources are better than one. 

But in an ever more fragmented information environment, it’s helpful to really drill down on the topics and trends that interest you and affect your life and livelihood. That’s not something you can do with most generalist news outlets, a few super-comprehensive exceptions aside.

Fortunately, an entire world of niche and trade-focused news and analysis outlets await your discovery. Their supply is nearly as boundless as your own potential range of interests, but if you’re looking for somewhere to start, try these six.

  1. PE Hub

PE Hub is a fantastic resource for news articles and press releases about business investment, with a clear focus on privately held firms and go-private transactions. If you’re looking for details on the latest moves by a particular closely held firm you’re watching, or you simply need to stay abreast of what’s happening in the space, PE Hub needs to be in your bookmarks bar (and ideally in your daily news feed).

  1. Ars Technica

Ars Technica is hard to define. Its beats include:

  • IT industry news with a clear insider focus
  • Scientific research
  • Unproven or experimental tech initiatives — if someone’s doing something really cool with no clear commercialization angle yet, there’s a good chance Ars Technica will cover it
  • Tech and science policy, mostly in North America and the European Union
  • The business of technology
  • Cars and trucks, again with a focus on the tech side of things
  • Gaming (both consumer-facing reviews and “business of” coverage)

This all adds up a very valuable resource for people who need to be in the know about science, tech, and the business of each. It’s a nice mix of timely and occasionally breaking news-type stories for weekday perusal and longer deep-dives for weekend reading.

  1. Global Mining Review

Take one guess as to Global Mining Review’s purview. 

Correct: This magazine covers the mining industry from every angle imaginable. Gold, hydrocarbons, lithium — if it comes out of the ground and impacts the global economy, you’ll read about the trends, people, and businesses behind it here.

Like Ars Technica, Global Mining Review offers a mix of breaking and more in-depth feature-type stories. It might not be the only resource you need to stay abreast of what’s going on in mining, but it’s definitely the most important.

  1. Benzinga

If your job (or personal investing activities) require you to stay on top of global financial markets, Benzinga is a vital resource. The sheer volume of content is superior to better-known outlets like Yahoo! Finance and CNBC, and the analysis is less obviously biased than that found on many other market-focused websites, where contributors may have positions in the securities they write about.

  1. AGDAILY

AGDAILY (or AgDaily) focuses on agribusiness and farming. There’s definitely a “big business” bias here — you won’t find any Farmers Almanac analysis or folksy truisms about mouse ears and oak leaves — but that’s OK. No matter how big or small your financial or career interest is in the farming industry, you know that you need to stay on top of global commodity markets if you want to succeed.

  1. Governing

Governing Magazine focuses on, well, the business of governing. Though its purview is broad, there’s a distinct emphasis on rubber-meets-the-road local governance rather than political science or arcane bureaucratic theory. So it’s absolutely essential both for public decisionmakers (and functionaries) and for anyone who needs to understand how government units function.

Information Is Power

Each of these niche or trade outlets is a useful complement to your existing news diet. They’ll make you a more informed, thoughtful consumer of news and information. They’ll make you more interesting in conversation. They’ll give you ideas you’d never have had otherwise — ideas that could advance your career, grow your business, or simply contribute to the ongoing project that is personal growth.

The potential is limitless — so dive in.


Kokou Adzo

Kokou Adzo is a stalwart in the tech journalism community, has been chronicling the ever-evolving world of Apple products and innovations for over a decade. As a Senior Author at Apple Gazette, Kokou combines a deep passion for technology with an innate ability to translate complex tech jargon into relatable insights for everyday users.

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