Media Bias Chart

[fskimospy]

While I agree in large part with your post...it's also surprising that so many liberals flock to HuffPo and Daily KOS for their "news".

I would say that the liberals I know treat the Huffington Post and DailyKos pretty skeptically. I know I wouldn't trust either to give me the full story. While HuffPo is certainly liberal, my biggest complaint with them is their absurd bias towards sensationalism and Kos is usually less sensational but even more liberally biased.

So yes, I agree that a nontrivial percentage of liberals get their news from non-credible sources like the above but I don't think the proportion is close to as large as with conservatives. I also think (as the chart shows) for all their faults HuffPo and Daily Kos retain at least a general tether to reality, unlike Infowars and Breitbart.

 

[FIVR]

The OP chart is generally accurate for domestic news except for it's placement of CNN.


In terms of international news, you would have to make a whole new chart with Pro-Israel and Pro-Kremlin bias. All the normal US news services would go way over on the pro-Israel scale while RT, Breitbart and InfoWars would all be pro-kremlin.

 

[Homerboy]

Per the linked article, the chart was first completed in 2016 and has been updated several times since. The most recent version is posted above.

Gotcha - I admit, I didn't read the article as I had seen the graphic (and accompanying artcles(s) several times before.

 

[dank69]

Infowars has no love for the Federalist?

 

[Moonbeam]

The OP chart is generally accurate for domestic news except for it's placement of CNN.

According to what study, or are we to take this as your objective evaluation of CNN?

 

[pauldun170]

I think CNN isn't so much liberal as much as it is "can you believe the sh1tshow in Washington right now?"
The quality of their writing has suffered a bit as they are trying to capitalize on the nonsense in Washington and the various "trending on social media" nonsense.

Since my normal sources of the news are top and center I'm going to be all smug and condescending towards those who get their info from other sources.

My bias is best bias and I like this picture.

 

[Commodus]

While I agree in large part with your post...it's also surprising that so many liberals flock to HuffPo and Daily KOS for their "news".

I'd tend to agree... I don't see that many looking to Daily KOS, but HuffPo has both a lot of traffic and a clear leaning. The main thing is to steer clear of news outlets that are cheerleading or very emotion-driven. When I read those sites, I take whatever they say with a grain of salt -- perhaps moreso than with right-wing sites. I know Fox, Breitbart et. al. are purposefully deceptive, so it's easy to be skeptical with them; it's harder when the intentions aren't so malicious, but there's still an irresponsible approach.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

I would say that the liberals I know treat the Huffington Post and DailyKos pretty skeptically. I know I wouldn't trust either to give me the full story. While HuffPo is certainly liberal, my biggest complaint with them is their absurd bias towards sensationalism and Kos is usually less sensational but even more liberally biased.

So yes, I agree that a nontrivial percentage of liberals get their news from non-credible sources like the above but I don't think the proportion is close to as large as with conservatives. I also think (as the chart shows) for all their faults HuffPo and Daily Kos retain at least a general tether to reality, unlike Infowars and Breitbart.

Looking at news site traffic rankings, I don't see Infowars and Breitbart coming anywhere close to the volume of traffic that just Huffington Post gets alone. There is no way Infowars and Breitbart are more widely read by conservatives on a proportional basis than HuffPo and DailyKos is among liberals. You are dead wrong on this point imo.

 

[bshole]

Looking at news site traffic rankings, I don't see Infowars and Breitbart coming anywhere close to the volume of traffic that just Huffington Post gets alone. There is no way Infowars and Breitbart are more widely read by conservatives on a proportional basis than HuffPo and DailyKos is among liberals. You are dead wrong on this point imo.

I have referenced Huffpo articles many times in my posts. Don't blame me though, that is googles fault for putting them on the top of my results when I do searches.

 

[Thebobo]

While I agree in large part with your post...it's also surprising that so many liberals flock to HuffPo and Daily KOS for their "news".

I have huff post in my FB feed but I know they lean left, I go there just to rage me up sometimes.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

I'd tend to agree... I don't see that many looking to Daily KOS, but HuffPo has both a lot of traffic and a clear leaning. The main thing is to steer clear of news outlets that are cheerleading or very emotion-driven. When I read those sites, I take whatever they say with a grain of salt -- perhaps moreso than with right-wing sites. I know Fox, Breitbart et. al. are purposefully deceptive, so it's easy to be skeptical with them; it's harder when the intentions aren't so malicious, but there's still an irresponsible approach.

I'm a news junkie and read a full spectrum of outlets...the chart above pretty much confirms my perspective. I personally like to see a variety of opinions.

 

[Bitek]

This is a very good point. While the left certainly has its own kooky websites they are actually fringe elements that are largely ignored. I would be hard pressed to find any credible Democrat citing Patribotics (what is that?) or the Palmer Report but I can easily find dozens, hundreds, or more prominent Republicans routinely citing Breitbart, the Daily Caller, etc. 'Damaging nonsense' has become part of what conservatives actually believe. Much, much less so for Democrats.

Patribotics is a blog run by Louise Mensch, a former UK conservative minister (and former News Corp VP...) who is aggressively anti-Russia. I'm not sure how that lands her in "extreme liberal" territory, let alone a news site. More Never-Trumper.

You may have seen her make the media rounds last year when Trump released his "Obama tappped my phones!" tweets. She goes on Real Time with Bill Maher from time to time.

She seems singularly focused on the Russia scandal and puts out a lot of information that can't be verified because she claims its leaks coming from her contacts in the world's various intelligence services made when she was in the UK govt. Only Mueller's investigation can prove her information. Clearly not in Cnn territory either tho, it's a blog. The URL is blog. Going onto the site i see no ads or products for sale even.

https://patribotics.blog

I don't see how this at all comparable to Info Wars, which seems a deliberate money making venture via conspiracy theory peddling. Revenue opportunities created by fear mongering and extremism.
They even have a store with top ranking Google ads. I'm not linking it...

Louise M. on RT w. BM @ 3:00. Pretty conservative IMO.

 

[fskimospy]

Looking at news site traffic rankings, I don't see Infowars and Breitbart coming anywhere close to the volume of traffic that just Huffington Post gets alone. There is no way Infowars and Breitbart are more widely read by conservatives on a proportional basis than HuffPo and DailyKos is among liberals. You are dead wrong on this point imo.

1) That's nonsense. Huffington Post is a website that covers a TON of different topics. Entertainment, style, travel, etc. Breitbart is only politics.

2) According to Alexa you are wrong. Will you acknowledge this? Infowars is in fact a kook fringe site but Breitbart is not. That should make you very, very concerned for the state of modern American conservatism.

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/huffingtonpost.com

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/breitbart.com

3) It's important to remember you're comparing sites like HuffPo and Daily Kos, which are both rated as biased and misleading, with what your chart labels literal nonsense that's hurting America.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

I have referenced Huffpo articles many times in my posts. Don't blame me though, that is googles fault for putting them on the top of my results when I do searches.

I prefer to use them (as well as other liberal outlets) as a source in this forum...as most liberals here trust them and find them highly credible. If I source a conservative site, both my point and the facts I'm referencing are immediately ignored while the site is bashed instead.

 

[fskimospy]

Patribotics is a blog run by Louise Mensch, a former UK conservative minister (and former News Corp VP...) who is aggressively anti-Russia. I'm not sure how that lands her in "extreme liberal" territory, let alone a news site. More Never-Trumper.

You may have seen her make the media rounds last year when Trump released his "Obama tappped my phones!" tweets. She goes on Real Time with Bill Maher from time to time.

She seems singularly focused on the Russia scandal and puts out a lot of information that can't be verified because she claims its leaks coming from her contacts in the world's various intelligence services made when she was in the UK govt. Only Mueller's investigation can prove her information. Clearly not in Cnn territory either tho, it's a blog. The URL is blog. Going onto the site i see no ads or products for sale even.

https://patribotics.blog

I don't see how this at all comparable to Info Wars, which seems a deliberate money making venture via conspiracy theory peddling. Revenue opportunities driven by fear mongering.
They even have a store with top ranking Google ads. I'm not linking it...

Louise M. on RT w. BM @ 3:00. Pretty conservative IMO.

Oh it's her website? Then yes, it's not quite infowars level pants-on-head crazy but it's close. She's a conspiracy theorist who has made a large number of wild and ultimately wrong predictions. Best off ignored.

 

[FIVR]

According to what study, or are we to take this as your objective evaluation of CNN?

This (OP's) chart shows CNN as lower in objective quality than "The Washington Times". Have you ever read an article by The Washington Times?


If you simply look at the chart, it is obvious the person who made it does not like CNN. The chart shows that they are less biased than many other news sources yet somehow they are placed as lower quality pretty much any other mainstream cable news.

I agree that CNN is not up to the quality of Bloomberg or WSJ but they are definitely way above Washington Times and at least as good as MSNBC.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

1) That's nonsense. Huffington Post is a website that covers a TON of different topics. Entertainment, style, travel, etc. Breitbart is only politics.

2) According to Alexa you are wrong. Will you acknowledge this? Infowars is in fact a kook fringe site but Breitbart is not. That should make you very, very concerned for the state of modern American conservatism.

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/huffingtonpost.com

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/breitbart.com

3) It's important to remember you're comparing sites like HuffPo and Daily Kos, which are both rated as biased and misleading, with what your chart labels literal nonsense that's hurting America.

Alexa ranks HuffPo 14th as a news site. Breitbart doesn't even rank in the Top 50. According to Alexa you are wrong. Will you acknowledge this?

https://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/News

 

[IronWing]

Mostly meets my impressions for sources I’ve read or viewed. Most of the sources I haven’t seen. I would pull both The Atlantic and The Economist back toward the center a bit.

 

[FIVR]

The more I look at this chart, the more pro-conservative bias I see....


WSJ is in the "neutral" category while HuffPo gets thrown into "very liberal" and "unfair interpretations of the news".

Washington Times is somehow reasonable news....


Lots of strange stuff going on. Basically, the chart says that conservative news apart from Prison Planet is reliable (although sometimes biased) while liberal news is generally BS. Only "neutral" (aka lean conservative) news sources such as Bloomberg and WSJ are considered to be high quality + unbiased.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

The more I look at this chart, the more pro-conservative bias I see....


WSJ is in the "neutral" category while HuffPo gets thrown into "very liberal" and "unfair interpretations of the news".

Washington Times is somehow reasonable news....


Lots of strange stuff going on. Basically, the chart says that conservative news apart from Prison Planet is reliable (although sometimes biased) while liberal news is generally BS. Only "neutral" (aka lean conservative) news sources such as Bloomberg and WSJ are considered to be high quality + unbiased.

"If you look at this chart and are convinced your “extreme” source belongs in the middle, you just might be part of the problem plaguing America today."

 

[FIVR]

"If you look at this chart and are convinced your “extreme” source belongs in the middle, you just might be part of the problem plaguing America today."

"If you don't let this chart convince you that conservative news sources are more reliable than liberal ones, you might be part of the problem that this author believes is plaguing America today."

 

[Bitek]

Oh it's her website? Then yes, it's not quite infowars level pants-on-head crazy but it's close. She's a conspiracy theorist who has made a large number of wild and ultimately wrong predictions. Best off ignored.

I don't even understand why it's on the list, nor in it's position on the far left. Seems like reaching to find items to balance out the chart, meanwhile it's not really accounting for traffic and influence.

You have some blog lined up against major "news" organizations like News Max (has a cable channel now), BB, Blaze, Drudge and Info Wars which drives major traffic and opinion on the right. I think OAN has a cable channel too.

Never even heard of Palmer report. Occupy? Is that still a thing? Is that even a news site versus an issue advocacy group? None of these people have radio or tv networks that i know of. Occupy complained they didn't have jobs lol.

Seems more indicative of where conservative thought& policy is being driven from these days.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

"If you don't let this chart convince you that conservative news sources are more reliable than liberal ones, you might be part of the problem that this author believes is plaguing America today."

I pretty much agree with the chart...you're the one struggling to rationalize your bias, not me.

 

[fskimospy]

Alexa ranks HuffPo 14th as a news site. Breitbart doesn't even rank in the Top 50. According to Alexa you are wrong. Will you acknowledge this?

https://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/News

I have no idea how they determine top news sites or when that list was generated but as we already covered Breitbart has a higher Alexa rank than Huffington Post. As far as I’m aware that is their official ranking of a site. If you can show me otherwise that’s fine, but if not will you admit you were wrong?

Also, why did you ignore the point that the Huffington Post reports on a wide range of issues while Breitbart is exclusively political? You’re trying to lump people looking for Leonardo DiCaprio’s latest girlfriend in with liberal news. Surely you can see why that’s dumb.

 

[Bitek]

Alexa ranks HuffPo 14th as a news site. Breitbart doesn't even rank in the Top 50. According to Alexa you are wrong. Will you acknowledge this?

https://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/News

But it has Reddit as #1. What does that mean for bias?

Not disputing HuffPo is liberal and a crap site, just seems more geared toward tabloid sensationalism and gossip from celebs to politics. It's like if TMZ also covered politics.

Ny post may be a fair counter part.

Drudge gets more traffic than NBC news. What does that say?