This document is my attempt to summarize what is needed to get up and running with Gnus, the news reader built-in to Emacs. I myself searched in vain for a long time to find a decent news reader, before discovering Gnus. I assume you're more or less familiar with newsgroups.
People can also read others' posts.
The first step is to connect to a news server. While 119 is the default if you don't specify anything, I access servers on nonstandard ports often enough that I want to immediately know the syntax when I need it. M-x gnus . It's not always easy to know which news server to use. If not, ask your system administrator.