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.
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.