It appears API rate limiting has effectively killed these alternatives. You essentially get nothing but “Too many requests” 429 errors.
Lemmy sadly does not have the active niche news and discussions I want. But now nothing can be read without going to Reddit. I hate Spez
I just started a US and World news community on my instance (had federation issues with Beehaw and a lot of stuff randomly didn’t come through in either direction, especially comments/replies). I contributed to the moderation policies they use for their news sub, and the community I put together has even tougher standards than that.
If you’re interested, here’s a post I put together with the standards for posts and the moderation policies we use: https://dubvee.org/post/58845
Community link: /c/news@dubvee.org
I feel guilty plugging my own community, but if Beehaw isn’t an option (they really are well modded), then I hope for this to be the next best thing. I’ve found the other existing news communities to be somewhat lacking in proper moderation and source vetting.