I had a really old computer and I used to browse the web with the lynx text browser in MS-DOS. Text news sites, like the old Excite news portal, were a god send. I was able read the AP wire and just get the news.
A while back I found a site that had a list of text only or news sites that looked really good on mobile. I am going to try to recreate it here. It will be a running list, so check back.
News
Australia
Other