So what, in your opinion is a reliable, unbiased news source?

CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, AP.
“THE WEEK” news magazine.

There isn’t one. All news sources have some inherent bias. CNN is less biased than Fox, but editors and reporters bring their own histories to the job.

Al_jazeera, when it was on cable, was pretty good. Alas, they are gone. They were particularly good for international news.

One of the issues, when asking about bias, is that the answer depends on your politics. To some, Fox is the gospel truth and everything else is left wing. And the opposite for MSNBC.

To me, the best advise is read or listen to news from a variety of sources. The actual truth is somewhere in the middle.

As @elbanditoroso said: gather news from various sources. Also pay attention to what people say, what they do, and why. Then you can piece together the truth.

I have posted elsewhere, but I like AllSides.com
It isn’t a single news source, but compiles sources from all different sides into categories so that you can compare stories.

I like The New York Times.

I should add that the editorials of The New York Times tend to lean left, but for regular news, I check the Times for facts.

The onion.

Seriously, there are basically no unbiased outlets left. At least the onion spreads satire evenly.

I rely on The Guardian, Vox, and The Atlantic.

A a news ource, I trust Reuters the most for unbiased reporting and they never scream sensational headlines to sucker you in like CNN and other liberal news sources. As far as anchors I like Brett Bair a lot. Smart, fair and balanced reporting and I have seen little to no evidence he is kowtowing to the FOX agenda. I am just beginning to get acquainted with egyn Kelly and happy to see she left FOX. The one I like the most is Joe Scarborough and Morning Joe. His conservative values match up with mine and he IMO offers the most balanced perspective and what is interesting to watch are the guests he brings on the show to help panel the mornings discussions of the news of the day. All are liberals but very rarely will they get out of bounds with liberal talking points because if they pull that shit on Joes show he will not invite them back Plus I like Mika his co-host. She is clearly a liberal Democrat but I am OK with that as she is incredibly smart and is usually spot on with her analysis and she also deals with women’s issues except without the hysteria that usually goes along with them on more liberal channels. I like Mark Halperin on his show a lot. Smart and spot on on the days news analysis. I bounce between Morning Joe on MSNBC, New Day on CNN and Fox and Friends in the morning while working out and having my coffee so by the time I get to work and log in here I have a pretty good feel for what to expect from everyone here. ;)

I agree that Reuters gets as close as one can get to an “unbiased news source” these days.

I also agree there’s no such thing as an unbiased source in absolute terms but relative to other sources in English, Reuters sticks to the facts and tries to describe them without slant.

They still make editorial choices re. what they decide to cover, by force. One cannot report on everything that happens.

The BBC is a pretty safe bet. It was set up to be an unbiased source and as it is funded by the licence fee it is independent from government or commercial interests. They have many great reporters working for them Frank Gardner on security, Carrie Gracie on China, Simon Jack on business and Orla Guerin on the Middle East to name just a few. I also think Al Jazeera does some great reporting and I like the Guardian newspaper. I look in on CNN and even Fox News at times just to hear what they are saying.

Many reporters are keen to report the truth first hand and in a balanced way, sometimes in difficult circumstances. This is what we call integrity and is why I trust the reporters mentioned above.

Thank you everybody for your advice. I completely understand the value of aggregating multiple sources and deciding on my own. I’ve done this off and on for many years, but frankly, given the current political climate, it’s far too stressful for me.

So I’m, perhaps unrealistically hoping to one stop shop.

I also don’t want to lean into my own liberal perspective. So I’m avoiding NPR, but I’m also finding CNN pretty biased in my direction. FOX, OTOH makes me want to kick puppies.

I’ll definitely check out Reuters and maybe give Morning Joe a look see.

Keep ‘me coming

I began my career in the ‘60s working for one of the great newspapers of the world, the New York Herald Tribune, first as a lowly copy boy, later as an editor for the Trib’s Paris edition. Even then, as unworldly and wet-behind-the-ears as I was, I was mightily impressed by the reporters’, columnists’ and editors’ attention to detail and their tireless quest to get their stories right. learned a lot watching, listening to, asking, and getting to know many already legendary newspapermen, among them columnist Jimmy Breslin, reporter-author Tom Wolfe, sports writers Dick Schaap and Red Smith, Pogo cartoonist Walt Kelly, drama critics Jean and Walter Kerr, and the ever-sharp-tongued movie critic Judith Crist, to name-drop only a few.

This of course was long before there existed social media when the word Twitter still conjured up only bird sounds, the days when newspaper stories bore their authors’ faces and bylines as a badge of honor for readers to see and learn to trust, rather than, as today, hide behind avatars that allow nameless, faceless ranters to spew hate and misinformation without fear of retribution and worse, do it knowing that many if not most of their readers will believe anything they say and spread it ever farther.

I miss those days. The ‘60s were a glorious time for the newspaper business and for me, personally, and I’m proud to be able to brag that I was a tiny part of it.

But over the years, watching so much of the Third Estate turn second-rate (e,g, Fox News), after watching so much of the press kowtow to a racist narcissist so clearly unfit for hold office, I have almost completely lost my faith in the institution that gave me my career start.

So to answer your question, there’s no one news source that I thoroughly trust. I have a hard time believing “unbiased” news is possible in today’s super-competitive, bottom-line focused, news business in which news can be disseminated instantaneously via social media with minimal or no fact checking.

Your best chance to getting anything near the “truth” is to keep and open mind, get your news from multiple sources, and stay away from Fox News.

Apologies for the endless screed.

I wouldn’t trust much of anything that is reported by just American Sources. Here are ranking of the most reliable journalism by country, just to give you all a global perspective. https://rsf.org/ranking#!/index-details

My favorite source is The Economist. Yes, it leans neoliberal in its opinions but it suits me because as a British magazine it is one step removed from the hysteria. Also because it is a weekly it has a chance to digest the news.

Lastly it is not America-centric and there is plenty of news from all over the world. And they have great science writers.

A pasture.
I want mine right from the horse’s mouth.

Every source has a perspective, so there’s no such thing as truly impartial. So take the source’s bias into account, and learn about what that is.

Try foreign journalists, and independent (non-corporate) journalists. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership

The Economist and the Atlantic are intelligent and do research.

You have to be careful as to whom you allow to define left and right. NPR may be to the left of FOX, but if you accept the current conservative myth that it is a leftist source for the news, you’re being played for a chump. In the struggle for minds, there is more than ample evidence as to where the more feeble of these are accumulating. When the mantra goes on and on about the bias inherent with the mainstream media, you must ask yourself, “when did the WALL STREET JOURNAL the ECONOMIST, BBC, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, FORBES, TIME, etc morph into Marxist mouthpieces? The counter to the “fair and balanced” network may be MSNBC, but if you accept the line that mainstream media is left leaning, you’re a fool.

@Cruiser I agree with your assessment of Bret Baier. He, Shepard Smith & Greta van Susteren just serve to prove the adage that “there are diamonds even in the sewers”. @Pachy I think you’re wrong about staying away from FOX. In fact their ratings have a great deal to do with liberals and intellectuals ogling the network for its openly crude (and very effective) propaganda mission. It’s a fascinating study in straight up manipulation, and it’s an absolute hoot to watch a knucklehead such as Hannity working the switches.

NPR is pretty far left, has been as long as I have listened to it. No myth there.

@stanleybmanly, I am not amused by FOX News’s kind of entertainment.

@ARE you kidding me Left of whom? The center? Who would you say is in the middle or “mainstream”?

@Pachy C’mon Pachy. Even the sinister harbors elements of unintended humor. I think if you watch it regularly, you might shift your opinion, but failing that there are still sound reasons for tuning in. Fox is like a snake loose in your house. You might find it repulsive, but you damned sure want to keep track of it!

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