[wool_gather]

The U.S. has NPR and PBS, but, to put it politely, they have variable amounts of trust depending on one's position on the political spectrum. They also indeed have government officials "breathing down their neck" at least in a budgetary sense.

[Apocryphon]

Their closer-to-neutral stance and low-frills style also don't draw in the audiences that the major news outlets do. The American public is too conditioned for sensationalism and sexy graphics to watch PBS NewsHour with the late Jim Lehrer.