I'm from Boston, and grew up listening to talk radio (i.e. conservative hosts, very much opinion-based, little prima facie unbiased reporting, &c). As I grew older, I realized I should expand my horizons and maybe try the NPR in the area, thinking that, as I was in Massachusetts ("tax"achusetts, the people's republic of Massachuetts), I would get a very different side of the radio "coin" as it were, with liberal vitriol and left-leaning moralistic rants. I daresay I was wrong. WBUR hosts the local NPR station and though the hosts tend to be left leaning, they are great at presenting both sides of many issues with striking equanimity, not to mention how incredibly interesting their guests are and polite their on-air demeanors are compared to their talk radio counterparts. The programming is great, with some in-house anchors as well as some syndicated shows throughout the day. I consider myself a libertarian and I can't even listen to talk radio anymore it has become that grating and absurd. In all, I would say a slight to moderate liberal slant.

P.S. one thing, though. While talk radio had it's bias slant as almost a banner of the station, NPR may suffer from a slightly more insidious approach to news, which is to say their content may be skewed slightly toward the liberal side, covering many green initiatives, rights-abuse scandals and the like. This, however, does not effect their reporting or discussion in any way, making them much more enjoyable and frankly more level-headed than their competitors.

They take a ton of money from oil companies, as well as others, and I can see it in some of their reporting. I'm a Pacifica fan myself. Totally listener-sponsored and democratic, and very leftist, although there's a struggle against liberals and democrats trying to take over.

It's pretty much like NPR every where. The local stuff does it's share of environmental reporting but that is really just serving the community in the way it really wants to be served.

On the other hand we have KBOO which could curl a rednecks hair. Funded by the community and as liberal as it gets. One of the big attractions of the fundraising drive is an all Grateful Dead weekend. One of the morning news hosts used announce at the beginning of the broadcast that she was an out transgendered news host and proud of it. It doesn't really support the super fringe of the liberal spectrum but almost.

If you have a fringe music interest there is probably a KBOO show for you. There are music shows that if you heard it in a shopping center you probably wouldn't think that you were hearing music.

There used to be a lady who did restaurant reviews. Evidently (I never saw her) she was a super big lady. Part of her review was if the chairs accommodated large people. She did a great review and as a service worker I never gave any thought to the necessity of commodious seat until I heard her reviews. KBOO loves this kind of stuff, if there is a niche that could be represented they want to be on it.

If you get a chance I like "An Evening of Afrotainment" you can stream some of their shows online.