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I've struggled to find press I can somewhat rely on.

In the UK, I found if you accept any news source, you are most likely first to bump into a right-wing paper, most of which I find contemptible. The BBC is biased, I trusted them until I lost faith in the government.

Somehow, FT seems to be compatible with my left, liberal stance. But The Guardian seems to be the most independently funded press that focuses on the rights of all citizens, fairness, green issues, public social services, equality etc.

The problem is it is still just a single news source! I would like a suggestion for the sort of European sources that would have an impartial but left take on British politics, with a similar/compatible culture. I have been put off up til recently because of the general hostility to not only the British government, but people too.

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    The Guardian has been hugely biased against Brexit over the past 2 years and has been pumping out a lot of propaganda. It is not in any way independent or impartial - they have an agenda like anyone else.
    – Time4Tea
    Mar 24, 2019 at 19:04
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    @Time4Tea: OP is explicitly asking for left leaning press. Mar 24, 2019 at 19:05
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    @DenisdeBernardy the OP asked for "impartial but left take". That's not how I would describe the Guardian.
    – Time4Tea
    Mar 24, 2019 at 19:18
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    @Time4Tea: "impartial but left [or any other] take" is an oxymoron. Mar 24, 2019 at 19:19
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    @Philipp what do you think of a reference like this one on ELU. Could that be a viable thing for Meta here (i.e. a list of news sources, different answers for sources based in different countries; split answer in sections for English and local language(s), community-wiki so there's a placed for all reasonable sources)?
    – JJJ
    Mar 24, 2019 at 20:24

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Per a comment I posted, "impartial but left [or any other] take" is a bit of an oxymoron. Still, if you're unapologically left leaning and concerned with "rights of all citizens, fairness, green issues, public social services, equality etc." you might find this answer interesting.

If you like the Guardian's coverage, The Independent is a relatively decent UK news source as well. There's an assumed pro-Russian bias because of its Russian oligarch owner, but having read it for a few years it felt a lot less obvious than the bias on RT, if present at all.

If you read French, Le Monde is fairly balanced too, with a left leaning tint -- definitely not as strong as Libération or Charlie Hebdo, but there nonetheless. If you can be bothered to buy an actual newspaper, look into the Canard Enchaîné, a weekly satirical that as of writing this still doesn't offer any online version of its paper. They're something of a best of breed that does no ads and are entirely self-funded, yet still pulls off breaking a laundry list of stories and doing investigative journalism. Marianne is a magazine that strives to be similarly independent, and is more strongly leaning left. Mediapart is also worth a mention as an independent outfit with a focus on investigative journalism, and offers a selection of English language articles.

In German, I've yet to come across anything that got me hooked. DW has some English articles and fairly good documentaries from time to time. For the rest, it's basically a barrage of "turn your ad blocker off" that I can't be bothered with for security reasons, and a surprising one at that given how savvy Germans seem to be on the topic. There probably are a few good sources that I missed, but my research on German language press led me to think it's digging itself into a hole.

In English, you'll need to cross the pond and/or explore other mediums to get more coverage. NYT and WP are left leaning classics. The WSJ is a classic too if you don't mind the center-right wing bias. Democracy Now and The Intercept are worth a mention if you don't mind unapologetically left leaning outfits. Vox is bigger than the latter two, and has some interesting articles and videos from time to time. Where they shine is on podcasting -- with the notable exception of their foreign policy podcast, Wordly, which is so offensively misleading on such a regular basis that you're basically better off not listening to it at all. If you like Podcasts, also check out Crooked Media, which is heavily into foreign policy, albeit from a US and heavily left leaning viewpoint. And by all means check out Chris Hayes' WITHPod podcast, which has the best primer on Brexit I've come across in the past 2-3 years and otherwise has spot-on (in my humble left leaning opinion) takes on a wide range of other topics.

Aside: You tagged this with fake-news. I've no idea what you're getting at there, but there's a difference between two people having different opinions on a fact (government spending on this or that is a good or bad idea before the data is in) and two people having their own facts (earth is round vs earth is flat). The first is about debate; the second clearly is not, and is what fake news is about.

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    There's no ads, ad blockers, or paywalls on taz, and they have the same model as The Guardian: "if you like this article, we would like it if you pay, but you don't have to". My experience in the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Canada, USA, and UK, is that since the demise of Swedish Fria Tidningen, there is now no newspaper like taz in any of those countries.
    – gerrit
    Mar 25, 2019 at 14:31
  • The independent is unadulterated garbage. Or at least the few bits I have the misfortune of coming across. May be the editorial rather than news articles though.
    – user19831
    Mar 26, 2019 at 19:08
  • @Orangesandlemons: Probably... The editorials and commentary sections of just about every newspapers are unadulterated garbage. (I honestly can't think of any that isn't, including for papers whose such sections I generally agree with.) Mar 26, 2019 at 20:04

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