Published on 19 January 2026.
Most of the websites I follow in my web reader are personal sites like blogs. With that said, recently I subscribed to my local council’s news web page. On that page, they publish various updates – events coming to the region, draft council reports, weather warnings, and more. They advertise that there is an RSS feed available for their news page, which is what lets me follow their news in my web reader.
I am delighted the local council’s news page is available on the open web, with a web feed to which I can subscribe. This means that I can stay up to date without having to follow on a platform like Facebook. Indeed, if this news were not on their website, there is a significant chance I’d miss it. Since subscribing …
Published on 19 January 2026.
Most of the websites I follow in my web reader are personal sites like blogs. With that said, recently I subscribed to my local council’s news web page. On that page, they publish various updates – events coming to the region, draft council reports, weather warnings, and more. They advertise that there is an RSS feed available for their news page, which is what lets me follow their news in my web reader.
I am delighted the local council’s news page is available on the open web, with a web feed to which I can subscribe. This means that I can stay up to date without having to follow on a platform like Facebook. Indeed, if this news were not on their website, there is a significant chance I’d miss it. Since subscribing a few days ago, two pieces of news came through which were interesting to me. Hooray for the open web!
This is a good time for me to document a local journalism effort that I have enjoyed following with a web reader. The Edinburgh Minute, a daily newsletter that curates news and links related to Edinburgh, recently moved from Substack to Ghost. I followed them for a while in my web reader via Substack, then Ghost. It was delightful to have a daily bulletin and to see a link to it in my web reader rather than having to subscribe via email and, as I am wont to do, feel overwhelmed by all the emails I need to review. My web reader feels calmer; my inbox doesn’t usually feel this way.
I like that I can go to my web reader to see, together, blogs I like and local news. And because posts from websites I follow in a web reader, I can apply whatever filters I want such that I don’t get overwhelmed by too many posts or posts that I know are not relevant to me. In other words: I love the open web, and it’s nice to be able to curate the local and the global in one place. I wonder if there are any more local web feeds that would be interesting for me to follow!
(One locally-orientated feed I’d love is a Northern Lights forecast feed that tells me if and when the Northern Lights are likely in my area on a given day!)