Media Bias Chart: A Guide to News Ratings
How independent rating services place news outlets by political lean and reliability, and how to read those ratings.
What this page is
The Political Carnival does not rate news outlets. Several independent services do, each with its own method. This guide explains what they measure, how they differ and how to use their ratings without handing over your own judgment.
The best-known rating services
- AllSides places outlets on a five-point scale from Left to Right. It combines editorial reviews by reviewers from different political leanings, blind surveys of readers and other data.
- Ad Fontes Media scores individual articles and episodes on two axes, political bias and reliability. Each piece is rated by a small panel of analysts with different political leanings.
- Media Bias/Fact Check rates bias and factual reporting with an editorial checklist and publishes a short write-up for each outlet.
Lean and reliability are two different things
An outlet can lean in one direction and still report facts carefully. Another can sit in the middle and still get facts wrong. That is why the services that use two axes keep the two scores apart, and why a single label rarely tells the whole story.
How to read any rating
- Check the date. Ratings change when outlets change owners, editors or formats.
- Separate news from opinion. Most services rate news reporting and opinion sections differently.
- Compare more than one service. Where two methods agree, the result is sturdier.
- Go to the primary source. A court ruling, a bill text or a dataset reads the same in every newsroom.
Limits
Every rating is a judgment made by the service that publishes it, not a measured fact. Critics from different political directions have questioned the methods of each service, and the services publish their methods so readers can weigh them. This page reports what the services do; it does not endorse or dispute any individual rating.