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[mainiac]

Hmm.. I'm not quite sure which category I fall in. I do claim to be independent, but I will admit that on average, my views lean to the left. I have a strong dislike for both the Democratic and Republican parties, because neither of them weighs the actual merits of an issue; they just accept or dismiss it because it is 'conservative' or 'liberal' ideals.

From my left wing point of view, it's sad how not true this is.  The conservative distaste for anything liberal seems only surpassed by the liberal hatred for anything liberal in this country.

Take health care reform.  Even setting aside, the public option and everything else, just look at the Medicaid funding.  The Senate bill could have been made cheaper if we had raised the level of Medicaid funding.  How?  The Senate bill subsidizes young poor people buying buying insurance (without which the reform falls apart).  The cost of these subsidies is higher then the cost of just giving some of these people free healthcare through medicaid.  But we don't want to give these people a free lunch, that would be socialism.  So the supposed liberal party wrote a bill that burned money rather then help people.

Yeah, so I don't really think liberals are automatically pro liberal.

[Mr Tk]

You should investigate the BBC then. I'm a little unsure how it operates in the US, but in the UK everybody pays a yearly TV license fee which goes to the BBC and that is where they get their money for the year. Money gets allocated across the different BBC mediums and programs. There is no third party advertising and the first party advertising is only to show what programs are coming up.

The BBC isn't completely independent due the fact that it is government funded through the license fees, but this only applies when you are in the UK. Using it as a independent news source for information about your own country (in this case the US) means that you are more likely to get a independent view, because of the lack of foreign influence (in this case US advertisers on a British news corporation.)

[KaelGotDwarves]

BBC America is played on PBS/NPR affiliate stations in the US if you get upgraded cable/satellite.

Reading articles about the US from the BBC is generally interesting and often hilarious 

In the US, we often forget that BBC is the most watched news conglomerate in the world, in terms of sheer amount of people, since other countries typically run BBC.

[de5me7]

http://www.iwpr.net/

its not much use for local news for most of us, put it appears pretty good. As far as im aware alot of their news is based on translating local news papers from the various regions they cover.