Definition of independent for the purposes of this question: source is not owned by a for-profit corporation, is not financially backed by any billionaire (either directly or via foundation or nonprofit organization) and is not financed by any national government (even if run without oversight).
It can have any perceived bias or political leaning.
Edit: Just to add it has to be written in English.
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This fits what you’re looking for:
Try the BBC. Or the English channels of DW (Deutsche Welle).
Keep in mind that shutting down independent or opposing media is a top priority for any dictator. Local sources will die off quickly.
BBC
Are you serious? The BBC are literally a government mouthpiece, with a subversive right-wing bias. When Labour is in power, they over-report every misdeed, and when the Tories are in power, they maybe raise an eyebrow as the country burns. The last BBC director was a major Tory who received a sizeable bribe from his party during his tenure.
In the UK the BBC is hugely pro-establishment but their reporting on world news is fantastic.
The BBC has been accused of being too far left. Often at the same time. In comparison to other English speaking news sources the BBC is quite neutral.
I’ll compromise: they’re about as politically neutral as the US democratic party is left-wing.
Good journalism tends to cost a lot, more than independents can gather. Especially independents that don’t do it to promote their agenda.
The only one that comes to mind is CSM. It’s nonprofit, and in spite of the name, there’s been nothing religious about it.
The international version of Der Spiegel and the Singaporean Straits Times are backed by for-profit organizations, but I appreciate their reporting.
I think you would like 404 Media: https://www.404media.co/
The Lever.
Drop Site News.
Don’t follow news sources. Follow journalists.
Most journalists are still sitting on Twitter or those that got kick out from Twitter are on Nazi infested Substack.
I didn’t mean follow as in Twitter. I meant follow as in pay attention to them and the stories they work on.
NPR - National Public Radio. It’s the closest you’re gonna get for unbiased independent news. It leans left but seriously, you’re not gonna find better.
Won’t be around much longer after January.
Please stop spreading misinformation and fear mongering.
We will see. Eliminating unwanted press would fit 100% into the turds agenda.
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No it’s not. That’s blatantly false. Stop fear mongering. Also barely any funding for NPR news proper comes from the federal government. It’s like 1%.
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I like propublica and democracy now, but when you start talking about foundations, it’s hard to know, they’re basically all funded at least at some point by a billionaire.
That’s kind of the thing that happens at least in the US, you either are big enough that some foundation gives you money, cause you actually need a lot of it to exist here, or you are so small that you can’t cover the kinds of stories the other guys can.
This system is designed such that journalism not ruined by the need to be profitable is relegated to the whims of patrons, much like art in feudal Europe.
I came here to promote those two outlets as well. Democracy Now and ProPublica are two of the only sources I have nearly absolute trust in. I still consume them critically, but I trust their work because they’ve been doing consistently high quality journalism for years. They’ve never let me down, so I throw them a few bucks whenever I can afford to. It’s probably not a coincidence that they both do more of the muckraking type of journalism than anyone else these days. When I think of ‘traditional’ hard-hitting journalism, these are the two I think of.
This is something else made so much worse by wealth inequality. The very wealthy have a vastly outsized influence on every aspect of the world. Being a billionaire, no matter how well-intentioned, is inherently a negative for humanity.
Ground news is an aggregator for news sources but it tries to show the bias of the news orgs whose stories it shows. This tool may help you find the independent sources you seek while also informing you of their potential bias and ownership
Paid, but even cheaper tier is worth it.
It has paid tiers, but I’ve been using it for free
TheGuardian is pretty decent.
I’ve read some good balanced stuff on “substack”. But you have to pay for most of their content. I found a few real journalists there that will allow you to read some of their stuff no charge
I listen to NPR often and I enjoy it, but it ultimately has the same problem as other mainstream outlets in that they are beholden to advertisers and, in turn, to extractors of capital. It leans left socially, but as with almost all other major news organizations, it is self-interested and will almost always support neocolonialist US practices. One tiny, not-the-best but temporally relevant example – they have yet to call what’s happening in Gaza genocide.
As someone else mentioned, there is Democracy Now!, they are viewer funded, but that is also supplemented by groups such as the Ford Foundation, which obviously has ties to capital as well. Still, Democracy Now! will give more of an “outside looking in” view of the United States.
I like listening to both NPR and Democracy Now! to hear both the US-centric (capitalist) points vs the a more global (and anti-capitalist) viewpoint.
Mother Jones is run by a nonprofit funded by reader donations. I’m sure some billionaires probably donate to it, but so do others.
