We created what we believe
to be an impartial media-bias ranking by gathering data available to anyone online
using Google search results.
Here’s how…
Our ranking system is based on these assumptions:
- We trash-talk our enemies more than our friends.
- A truly balanced news organization would talk about both
left and right somewhere close to the same amount.
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Our Hypothesis:
Given the above assumptions…
We set out to test our hypothesis that left-leaning news agencies would use certain terms more often than their political opposites, and vice versa. We guessed that some good terms to indicate bias one way or the other would be:
“left-wing”, “right-wing”, “radical left”, “radical right”, “far left”, and “far right”. These terms are descriptive rather than pejorative. (Though our app will include the statistically most-predictive pejoratives and descriptive terms).
The quantity of certain terms on a given media outlet’s website can demonstrate bias in one direction or the other.
Interestingly, this methodology captures not only the bias inherent in the agency’s news and commentary articles but also the dynamic discourse surrounding them. This means the rating reflects not just editorial slant but also the broader conversation taking place on the platform—whether reinforcing or counterbalancing perceived bias. While future refinements may allow for distinguishing between editorial content and audience commentary, this holistic approach currently offers valuable insight into how bias manifests and is perceived by the public.
Our Procedures
For each news agency listed on the AllSides Media Bias Chart, we used Google to determine how many times each phrase has been used on each media site. For example, we googled: “left-wing” site:alternet.org, which resulted at the time in 1160 results. That tells us that Google’s spiders have discovered 1,160 uses of the term “left-wing” on http://Alternet.org. Then we googled “right-wing” site:alternet.org and received 31,300 results. The same was done for all the other news agencies. And yes, you can try this at home!
Then, we added the totals of the phrases containing “left” and totaled the number of phrases found using “right”. Then divided the lower of the two into the higher. The result potentially tells us how far left or right of center the news agency’s website sits, and where to place them on the continuum.
After adding and testing all the media outlets on the AllSides chart, we also added other news agencies from other charts.
Results
Given the resulting use of terms, the results show that Alternet is 17-times more likely to use terms describing the Right, than the Left, suggesting that Alternet belongs firmly (in fact, at the far end) on the Left of our continuum. CBN is the most right-leaning media outlet on the AllSides chart; and rightly so as it is 5.8 times more likely to talk smack about the far-left than the far-right. You can see the original version of the results here: Media Bias Study by Jesse Fisher
Some Surprises
It appears that this method of testing bias of a media website is generally accurate. However, there are some surprising results. For example, Breitbart and TheBlaze were placed on the Far-Right of every media bias chart we’ve seen. On this ranking, before the 2020 election, they were the first two news sites just to the right of Center suggesting that their reputation of right-wing bias was perhaps unwarranted at the time. This is no longer the case. After the 2020 election, both Breitbart and TheBlaze shifted very far to the Right.
Perhaps surprising to Liberals, both government-run PBS and BBC are on the left end of the spectrum and not in the Center where they are often placed on media bias charts. Both are about 2.5 times more likely to smack talk the Right than the Left. In fact, by another method included in my results, PBS is the most-hostile environment for Conservative visitors. Breitbart appears to be the most hostile environment for Liberals.
Another example of the unexpected, is that RealClearPolitics.com, placed in the Center by AllSides, was actually 3.8 times more likely to talk smack about the Left, than the Right, placing it near to the right end of the spectrum. Later it moved back towards the Center with a rating of 1.48.
Another surprise result was that most of the Left-leaning news sites spoke more often about the “radical left” than the “radical right”, both before and after the 2020 election. This might indicate that the mainstream Left was worried about the “radical Left” (BLM & Antifa) and its influence on the Democratic Party.
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Meet our team
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Jesse Fisher
Founder
Jesse Fisher
Data Analyst
Jesse Fisher
Software Programmer
Celeste Fisher
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