JJ Pryor, writing for Towards Data Science examined 102 news sites on the news bias chart. He explored the subject of what can be truly considered fake news today and completed an extensive analysis of:
- Which sites are actually biased?
- Which news sources consistently provide more fiction than facts?
- How impactful are the relationships between reliability, bias, and traffic?
Pryor obtained his initial data set from Ad Fontes Media, a statistically backed source of media bias and truthfulness. Ad Fontes Media is responsible for the Interactive Media Bias Chart which is a visualization that displays measures of news. The Media Bias Chart is a project that aims to evaluate as many major news sources in the U.S. as possible, within its budget limitations. For every article they analyze, their panel of reviewers consists of 1 person leaning left, central, and right. They also have a meticulous methodology that needs to be followed. You can read more about this project here. Currently, the project is following and evaluating over 100 news organizations.
Are you interested in knowing:
- Which news sources should we be reading?
- Which websites can be considered ‘Fake News’?
- Who are the 10 most biased news sources?
- Who are the 10 most neutral news sources?
- Who are the 10 most liberally biased news sources?
- Who are the 10 most conservatively biased news sources?
- What news websites get the most traffic in the USA?
- Which sites can be considered contributors to echo-chambers?
- How many news sources use paywalls?
Pryor determined that there is a strong connection between highly reliable sites and their unbiasedness, which is the proper position that news sites should strive for. On the opposite side, the more biased a website is, whether right or left, the more fake news is provided.
The 10 news media that are considered the most neutral are:
- The Hill
- Forbes
- Christian Science Monitor
- Business Insider
- Fortune
- Marketwatch
- Financial Times
- Bloomberg
- Reuters
- AP
The article explains the methods used to analyze the information and is well worth the read to gain an understanding of how Ad Fontes Media measures and defines bias and reliability of news sources. Review a full list here.