I recommend vlogs (video logs) on Youtube. There are three reasons:

• (1) vlogs are usually more entertaining than daily news, politics, and the "narrator" will usually speak with a standard, but not an idealized Mandarin accent like CCTV news announcers. Contents vary from everyday life, e.g. travelling, cooking, etc., which are arguably more varied than the "Trump said this, Xi said that, and now the latest COVID-19 numbers..."

• (2) Vloggers will usually speak an everyday language that is rich in those colloquial expressions you would most need to move from "Textbook Mandarin" over to "Real Life Mandarin." The heavily edited journalistic news language, especially that of Xinwen Lianbo, is too sterile to teach you anything beyond the political vocabulary.

• (3) most vloggers are nice enough to upload their videos with subtitles.

I will list some examples here, but, of course, you can search for whatever suits your interests best.

Beitong北同's channel is probably good if you are already an intermediate Mandarin speaker, he speaks clearly and is also a nice "documentary" of everyday life in China.

小叔TV should be a channel by the same person as above, but feature more outdoor and travel videos. As I have seen, it's also more rigorously subtitled.

麻雀喳喳野行记 is Youtube account about a young woman's 100 days in a jungle and how she creates tools, shelter, etc. from grass, wood and stones.

These are just arbitrary examples that I've been watching lately and have found reasonable good for learning Chinese. There are lots of others, unfortunately, not all of them are subtitled, but with Youtube's recommendations algorithm will find you more, see if you can find something that fits your needs.

I recommend vlogs (video logs) on Youtube. There are three reasons:

• (1) vlogs are usually more entertaining than daily news, politics, and the "narrator" will usually speak with a standard, but not an idealized Mandarin accent like CCTV news announcers. Contents vary from everyday life, e.g. travelling, cooking, etc., which are arguably more varied than the "Trump said this, Xi said that, and now the latest COVID-19 numbers..."

• (2) Vloggers usually speak an everyday language that is rich in those colloquial expressions you would most need to move from "Textbook Mandarin" over to "Real Life Mandarin." The heavily edited journalistic news language, especially that of Xinwen Lianbo, is too sterile to teach you anything beyond the political vocabulary.

• (3) most vloggers are nice enough to upload their videos with subtitles.

I will list some examples here, but, of course, you can search for whatever suits your interests best.

Beitong北同's channel is probably good if you are already an intermediate Mandarin speaker, he speaks clearly, and it is also a nice "documentary" of everyday life in China.

小叔TV should be a channel by the same person as above, but features more outdoor and travel videos. As I have seen, it's also more rigorously subtitled.

麻雀喳喳野行记 is Youtube account about a young woman's 100 days in a jungle and how she creates tools, shelter, etc. from grass, wood and stones.

These are just arbitrary examples that I've been watching lately and have found reasonable good for learning Chinese. There are lots of others, unfortunately, not all of them are subtitled, but with Youtube's recommendations algorithm will find you more, see if you can find something that fits your needs.