Advice Columns

Note: This section needs an update. There's more going on recently in advice columns.

Some newspaper advice columns focus on difficult or awkward social situations. It's like an advanced course in navigating current U.S. society. But be careful; following bad advice can be harmful.

Here are some that are well-regarded. Unfortunately these are behind paywalls. But even if you don't have a subscription, sometimes you can see a list of the kinds of situations they cover:

Social Q's. New York Times

The Ethicist. New York Times

Washington Post advice columns

NPR has some older examples without paywalls (this advice doesn't change fast). Note additional links at the end.

And see a 2017 Columbia Journalism Review article about advice columns, their history, and what they meant in 2017.

We are looking for alternatives and expect to have more suggestions in the future. There are many advice sites; the problem is deciding which ones are reasonably safe to use, in serious situations where you may feel over your head.

For your own research, we suggest Perplexity.ai - it has a free version, which has become our research tool of choice for almost any topic, from medical research, to instructions for using software or equipment, to local coffeehouses (check their websites or call - AI makes mistakes), to today's local, national, or world news. It gives you both a narrative and links that you can check for credibility (especially important when U.S. government information needs to be fact checked; and all AI needs to be fact checked, as always).

Perplexity.ai makes fact checking easy, because it provides somewhat vetted links that are directly relevant to the narrative, and you can decide on the credibility of the links. (For example, a link to Reddit just means that somebody wrote it, and you might want to check other sources before relying on that information, especially if it's important to your project.)