What's this? If you've ever used Zite or Feedly or a news aggregator of any kind, you have seen really simple syndication (RSS) in action. RSS is an XML doc type that takes news article feeds and prints them to a screen. Below is a drop down box that invokes a simple PHP script that I modified for my own news purposes. Choose a feed from the drop down box and the content will be returned to this screen. Hit back, choose another feed.
Something to keep in mind is that the method used here siphons content from other sites. I'm not doing that for commercial purposes and any links contained should take you to the original content. This method simply aggregates sites I am regularly interested in and gives me one convenient place from which to launch a reading odyssey. I am not leeching content: I have no ads on my site and make no money from it.
If you want to make your own news aggregator, check out W3Schools on the subject and/or head over to bavotasan to get a working prototype.
Not sure you want to DYI? Well, the thing about apps and "free" services is that they either advertise directly to you or they sell your data to advertisers. In return for convenience, you give up your privacy and make yourself data for other people's profit. In many cases, you are also paying in this way for what is truly free information. All of the links I have listed below are free RSS feeds. There are many thousands of such. The prevalence of apps makes RSS less sexy than it was when it first arrived, but it's still a great alternative source of truly free information.