> Maybe we need some kind of non-profit media aggregator that gives you just the small drip you need and that’s it.

I think you'd like news.ycombinator.com (also called Hacker News or HN). What's nice is that the news titles on the home page give you the exact slow drip you're looking for. If you want to participate in a discussion, then there's a comment section, but if you just want to read more, you can click directly through to the article without seeing any comments at all.