What do you consider a "reputable" news source and why?

None alone, you have use many sources and read between the lines

My two eyes!

Walter Cronkite at CBS was the last reputable one. Most news outlets have an agenda and that means they sort, inflate, deflate, etc. to meet their agenda. Fox agenda is to provide a strong counter to the liberal outlets, hence you see more than 50/50 "fair and balanced".

That said, I was a LT on Adak when the Anchorage Times called to ask about the McDonalds being built out there. I was running the construction contracts office at the time and my staff got stuck with inspecting a MWR job.

Watch out for the last question "Is there anything you wanted to add?". My response was "There's a bunch of us who'd rather have a Burger King." Seems I wound up on most "Quotes of the Day" in the rags nationally.