Most people do not need "more news". They need the right news about two or three topics — their industry, a country they care about, an election, a company — without scrolling feeds all day. This guide compares the main ways to follow a topic in 2026 and gives a simple setup that takes ten minutes.
Why following a topic is harder than it looks
Three problems show up as soon as you try:
- Volume. A big topic produces thousands of articles a week. On Mirada, artificial intelligence alone gets more than 20,000 articles in seven days. Nobody can read that.
- Duplicates. One agency report is republished by hundreds of sites, so alerts repeat the same story many times.
- One-sided view. Feeds tuned to your language and habits show how your media covers a story, not how the rest of the world does.
A good setup reduces volume, removes duplicates and shows several perspectives.
The main options compared
| Method | Good for | Weak spots |
|---|---|---|
| Google Alerts | Rare names, niche keywords | Floods on big topics, many duplicates, no context |
| Google News "Follow" | Casual reading in one language | Personalised, hard to see other countries |
| RSS reader (Feedly, Inoreader) | Specific outlets you trust | You must choose sources yourself; volume grows fast |
| Newsletters | Expert commentary | One author's angle, fixed schedule |
| Telegram channels | Speed | Unverified posts, noise, no overview |
| Topic analytics + digest (Mirada) | Big topics, comparing countries, trends | Headlines and numbers, not full articles |
The short version: use alerts or RSS for narrow keywords, and a topic page plus a weekly digest for big topics where you need the overview, not every article.
A ten-minute setup that works
- Pick at most three topics. Name them the way you would search: "inflation", "Taiwan", "Nvidia", "elections in Chile".
- Open each topic on Mirada. Type it into the search — any language works, typos are fine. You get a page with articles per day, the countries and languages covering it, the tone and the latest headlines.
- Follow it. Press "Follow topic". In your account you will see the numbers for each followed topic and the newest headline.
- Get a weekly summary. Subscribe to the digest: once a week you get what changed for your topics, with the main numbers and links to sources.
- Keep one narrow alert. For something rare — your company name, a niche technology — add a Google Alert. Rare keywords are where alerts shine.
How to read a topic in five minutes a week
When you open a topic page, look at four things in this order:
- The chart. Is coverage rising or falling? A spike usually marks an event worth reading about.
- Countries. Which countries write about it most? A topic covered mostly by one region is a regional story; a topic covered everywhere is global.
- Tone. A sudden drop in tone often means bad news is building before it reaches the headlines.
- Latest headlines. Read three or four from different countries and languages, not ten from the same outlet.
That is enough to stay informed without reading everything.
Following news in other languages
The most interesting part of a story is often outside your language: how Chinese media covers Taiwan, how Spanish-language media covers migration, how Russian media covers sanctions. Mirada counts articles in 65 languages and lets you search in English, Russian, Spanish or Chinese — so "inflación", "инфляция" and "通货膨胀" lead to the same topic. To compare framing across countries, see how to compare news coverage across countries.
FAQ
What is the best way to get news alerts for a topic?
For rare keywords, Google Alerts. For big topics, a topic page with a weekly digest: alerts on big topics send dozens of near-identical messages a day.
Is there a free news digest by topic?
Yes. Following topics and the weekly digest on Mirada are free and need no password.
How do I follow news about a company?
Search the company name on Mirada to see coverage, countries and tone, follow it, and add a Google Alert for the exact name if it is small.
How do I avoid duplicates in news alerts?
Count unique outlets instead of articles. Mirada does this by default: a story republished by hundreds of sites counts once per outlet.