Best value/ease of use: All Headline News
Most content: AP

Thanks. I've been looking at All Headline News. Their web site leaves a bit to be desired; I suspect they may be in the position of selling to a customer base that largely knows who they are anyway ...

AP has been ignoring me -- I have a mild speech impediment and I am MUCH more comfortable working via e-mail than via phone. They do not answer e-mails, apparently.

I e-mailed All Headline News, but any chance you could give an independent opinion on:

1. How easy it is to parse the newsfeeds so that I'm only getting the news that is appropriate for my site? It's for science fiction and fantasy fans and I'lm looking for entertainment news. News about, say, the latest superhero movie = good. News about Paris Hilton? = not so good. I'd like to be able to keep it as "on target" as possible.

2. How much scripting will I need to do on my end? I can do the basics, but is this going to be an elaborate project to get my site to display the feed, or do they provide all the templates etc. that I'll likely need?

All headline news is pretty easy and straigt forward... they use menu based system to make what you need.. a no-brainer

You can use their system to cutnpaste or you can build out your own script and populate from rss.

Check out Washington Post. Quality stuff, often free.

If you want to stay genre-specific, try a search for "Science Fiction newsfeeds" or another version of that phrase. I got some good results on MSN, at least - not only sites that have feeds, but also sites telling which feeds they use, which could also be useful.