Ideally ones that provide RSS/Atom feeds. Currently, I’m following the BBC, CBC, The Guardian, DW, and Al Jazeera, and they provide reliable information, but there is always a bit of a bias. For instance, BBC and DW are quite pro-Israel, while Al Jazeera are rarely critical of the Qatari government. Are there any independent news outlets that have less of bias w/ RSS feeds?
edit: Wording has been changed a bit. One more thing, I’d rather have news sources that are not US-centric. As somebody from Hong Kong, I’d also like to ask if there are any good ones that cover the South China + Southeast Asia region, since SCMP was bought out by Alibaba a few years ago.
Axios and AP are ok too imo
I assume DW is Deutsche Welle? It seems like they are having news without subscription and cookie banner that forces subscription or accepting the cookies so I will start to read it.
Headlines are unbeatable. The other half is delightfully left.
Bellingcat
Just don’t use BBC for anything related to the Palestinian genocide.
Or for anything related to transgender people
The only part of the BBC reporting that may still be useful is the 6am Radio 4 news.
I find fact based source sites like Reuters the best for this. If you want to understand exactly what is speculation and what is known about a story, there isn’t much that I have found to do this better. There is however some leaning towards the effects on stock markets, but I find the core bias well managed.
I read reuters every day if I can, and they are pretty good for world events and business news especially.
I’ve noticed some bias creeping in with candidates like El Sayed and Mandami and the like. But they have some really good reporting sometimes. They actually cut off US users in like 2024 or so, a paywall, just for us that I’m aware, but have since removed it.
The guardian helps round out what reuters leaves out. Then check The Intercept and Propublica regularly for investigative stuff. I need more but everything else I used to read online is paywalled now it seems.
I think you are on the right track. Newswire services like AP and Reuters tend to have the least noticeable spin, but no news service is bias free. Best you can do is diversify your outlets and look at not just the narrative but now each outlet sources their claims (Who are they talking to? What data do they use to support their conclusions?)
I do not know much about HK news sources, but I follow some Taiwan-based outlets like Focus Taiwan (state-backed) and Taipei Times (largest English-language outlet). There is often coverage of HK and southeast Asia there but obviously more in how it relates to Taiwan. NHK in Japan may also be an option. Best of luck!
I will check out some of those Taiwan-based news sites, thanks!
As a Taiwanese, most of our mass media suck (not those mentioned English ones but Traditional Chinese ones).
Taiwanese mass media and its staff have rather a poor reputation. The general public rated Taiwanese mass media as a whole at 5.58/10 in 2019.[12] Cédric Alviani, Asia-Pacific Bureau Director of Reporters Without Borders, indicated that Taiwanese mass media has suffered from political polarization, sensational reporting, and absolute power of the owners within a media.[14] In a 2022 Reuters Institute survey, Taiwan ranked last among democracies in the Asia-Pacific region on people’s level of trust in media, at a 28% trust rate.[15]
404 Media? I’m not much one to follow news, so I can’t speak to accuracy or biases, but I’ve heard them recommend as an independent source. Especially since, they should be less beholden to corporate interests since they’re a journalist cooperative.
PBS is decent, if written to a bit of a dumbed-down level at times while their NPR counterpart is better with that. Ars Technica was originally an excellent tech site, but has broadened its repertoire quite a lot over the past decade - although it doesn’t focus so much on the things most mainstream media sites cover, there’s still routinely some overlap.
NPR is not better than PBS. I am glad NPR is there, but they are NOT reliable. They allow corporate interest groups to come on and bold faced lie without challenge. Plus they are scared of their own shadow, at least if the conservatives are around.
The BBC is better than NPR, but they have their own problems, and are probably getting worse with the recent tory purge over the movie about the israeli occupation last year was it?
Australia has two public broadcasters: ABC and SBS. Both provide reasonably balanced reporting.
abc.net.au/news is the main one, similar in concept to the BBC. Officially they don’t support RSS feeds any longer, but they still exist and work. See https://james.cridland.net/blog/2025/abc-news-australia-rss-feeds/
sbs.com.au/news is our “Special Broadcasting Service” and caters to our more multicultural and indigenous audiences in general, but their news is fairly solid, perhaps without the breadth and depth of the ABC. Their main RSS news feed is at https://www.sbs.com.au/news/feed and they have others. See https://feedsearch.dev/api/v1/search?result=true&url=sbs.com.au
I will follow SBS, thanks mate!
The fact that the US police seem to target the Australian Broadcast Corporation every time they cover civil disturbance in the US does speak to their credibility to me.
Same as the fact the retuers journalists got periodically wasted by the US army in the Iraq and afghanistan conflicts spoke well to theirs.
The intercept does good work. Surprised no one has mentioned them yet.
The guardian.
Nice to see many people recommending the Guardian. I have been thinking of getting more news from news outlets from around Europe and one from UK feels easy since it will be in English.
It has developed into a true international newspaper.
I’m conflicted if it is good or bad if they focus more international. It feels more relevant but it might also write the same news as other news outlets and then I’m just reading the same news from several sources. I will probably buy a 1 year subscription and evaluate what I think about it.
Drop Site, Breaking Points, 404, The Guardian
I second Breaking Points. Very good news source with viewpoints you won’t hear in most places.
My only complaint is they do have an analyst named Emily Jashinsky who is a Tucker Carlson type, and whenever she opines I grit my teeth a little. (Though, like Tucker, she is knowledgeable and occasionally offers angles on issues I didn’t consider.)
If you’re looking for general news I subscribe to Grist, The Conversation, Mother Jones, and ProPublica. They have a mostly neutral bias. I also have some leftie sources: Vox, The 19th, and Jacobin. And one right wing news source that is more libertarian than MAGA: The American Conservative, just to keep an eye on them. All of those have a US bias. The EFF’s Deep Links and Open Culture are also great but are more niche.
maybe also AP News? not really a news outlet but i also have MBFC and Lead Stories
i use freshrss’s extractor to get feeds from sites without rss/atom and also for full text instead of short intro, might be useful for you too
