Where’s your favorite information source stand on the political scale?
I’ve updated the following subjective chart based on information compiled from various sources and your feedback. Some sources have shifted left or right, others have been added including: ESPN, McClatchy, the Federalist, Conservative Review, Washington Monthly, Twitchy, Gateway Pundit and Conservative Treehouse.
Please note that outlets on left and right sometimes publish material that’s on the opposite side of the political spectrum, or that has no political leaning at all. The placement is based on perceived overall tone and audience. Position on the chart doesn’t necessarily imply credibility or lack thereof. Sources on far right and far left have, in many instances, produced excellent, factually correct information at times.
I have loosely placed more traditional information sources in the top half of the chart working down toward aggregators, fact-checkers, opinion sites and less news-related sources. (This posed some position challenges since most of traditional information sources are left-leaning.) I did not attempt to place individual programs or broadcasts.
Compiling such a chart is obviously difficult for many reasons, some of them having to do with space. The spacing should be considered relative and not an indicator of absolute position. A number of the information sources technically belong on top of one another.
You have contributed terrific ideas, such as sizing boxes based on audience, and dividing into quadrants. This is a work in progress. Thanks for your input!
Think a source should be moved? Want one added? Leave a comment!
For a larger view, click on the image and enlarge.
Alternate charts and opinions:
https://www.infowars.com/alternate-reality-viral-propaganda-chart-demonizes-independent-media/
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com
Preorder “The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think and How You Vote.”
A few thoughts:
– Reuters should be on the far Left – they have never been MOR.
– Weekly Standard and Daily Signal should swap spots – WS is for Big Government, DS is not.
– The Blaze should move to the Left at least one spot.
– WSJ should move to the middle, and maybe even a tick into Left territory.
– Add Investor’s Business Daily to the right side, probably underneath Frontpage (in that range, at least).
– ABC should be far Left – the guy that runs it is married to Susan Rice, so ’nuff said.
– Any of the so-called fact-checking orgs should be placed fully on the Left, as opposed to touching the midline.
– Yahoo should be on the far Left – I have never seen anything resembling conservatism from their “reporting”.
– If you are going to include Buzzfeed and Mashable on this chart then you may as well add Twitchy, but add them on the right, maybe second from the Right.
After looking at the other links I think yours is best in design. A few things about placement though:
First the most glaring need to change is putting Reuters in the center. It should be to the left as far as you have the WP and NYT. Similarly for UPI, but no need to go that far left for them, just decidedly left of the line like where you have Yahoo!.
The only sources at the center should be C-Span (although I could appreciate an argument that would move it in the same position as The Hill) Roll Call, Stars and Stripes, and Military Times.
Forbes needs to go to the left of the line like where you have The Hill.
Barrons needs to go to the left like where you have People.
I don’t know “reason.com” so I’ll trust your judgement there.
RCP needs to be to the left though, like where IBT is.
I can’t quite read what the black bannered source in the middle is, “media-something” but again up to you.
Factcheck.org needs to be moved decisively to the left of the line there is nothing unbiased about that source although I’ll grant it’s not as bad as Reuters, AP, LAT, WP, NYT and the rest of the networks. So I’d move it to the same place as The Intercept or maybe CNBC.
The WSJ needs to be moved to the left of the line, like where you have Poynter.
Yes it’s become that bad and such pervasive leftism in the media that there are only 4(3?) that deserve the title “unbiased”, which is what I assume placement on the left-right line means.
It’s a great graphic though really better than the others you linked to, the design is much easier to read and digest.
I’d love to see the chart with each publication’s quadrangle sized according to its INFLUENCE on public opinion! For example NYTimes might be one of the largest boxes on the Left and Fox News might be comparably large on the Right
Speaking as a Brit, The Guardian / BBC line up solidly with the NYT and WaPo on anything of consequence, so I think they should be moved over to the left to join their buddies.
If “The Observer” means the UK newspaper, then this is just the “Sunday” version of the Guardian, so should be over to the left a bit too. (Find them at guardian.com/oberserver)
Ace of Spades HQ could be added to this. On the right
To add, Hot Air should probably move a tick leftwards, and RedState many ticks left.
I gave up on them when they jumped the shark in the primaries, so they may have changed, but back then they were pushing hard for liberalism and Hillary.
Ace of Spades should be on that list.
Sheryl,
This is great. Now we need another chart showing all those in congress who are married or related to someone in the different news media organizations. It’s no wonder we cannot get the real story. Did Susan Rice leak to her husband the unmasked names? Funny how the media never reveals these connections.
The Economist should be moved way over to the left, the WSJ another inch to the left.s
After seeing this post, you can move reason.com off the list entirely https://reason.com/blog/2017/01/10/trump-selects-anti-vaccination-kook-robe
This chart is a good point of reference for those news consumers who wish to know the ideological “bent” of the news organizations reporting of which they are listening. That said, I would make two suggestions…..
a. Add Dailywire.com and WND.com to the right side of your column.
b. Organize your chart by category, for example
Television News Organizations (or primarily television news)
Newspaper/Periodical News sites
Web based news organizations
Missing among the broadcast news outlets is the PBS NewsHour, at one time renowned for its reasonably fair and balanced reporting back when it was the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. These days, it could just as well be titled “The Mother Jones NewsHour”, from its discussions of social issues and pro-left politics, and from one of the bigger biases out there: in 20+ years, they have not featured a single skeptic climate scientist on their program to discuss any science viewpoints from that side of the issue, as contrasted with the 39 times they’ve permitted unquestioned viewpoints from IPCC / NASA / NOAA scientists.
One aspect that should be considered is the size of each organization’s reach, i.e., viewers/readers of the bias they put out. The Left has far greater impact in their brainwashing effect. Show their size by making their emblems the proportionate size of their reach. This scaling would demonstrate how disadvantaged the Right is, plus you can throw the Left’s dominance in education exposure, Hollywood and Entertainment and the picture would look more bleak than this chart shows.
Adding theconservativetreehouse.com to the right would be great.
It’s hard to find a website that is as well sourced and deeply researched by it’s main editor, Sundance.
Without this website and it’s ‘Treepers’, it’s highly likely George Zimmerman would be on death row and the cop from the ‘Ferguson’ incident might be as well.
Worth a look.
I would add “Weasel Zippers” to the Right side.
Reuters should move left. The Economist should definitely move left.
I think the chart format is too limiting. It should be a 4-quadrant maybe…. with the X-axis being liberal/conservative and the Y-axis being something like globalist/nationalist? Someone probably has a better idea…. But, that would allow you to, for example, have InfoWars and National review in the same half, but in polar opposite quadrants. That would be more accurate.
yes, I think that would do it. There has to be some basis for the order top to bottom on Y axis. Also sizing box relative to audience size.
I see your chart as having a slight problem. It is symmetrical, the same distance on the left as the right. I see the media companies much further to the left than the conservative media on the right. Suggesting an asymmetrical chart with a 4X modifier for the left side. That would be closer to representing what is really out there.
I was thinking the left horizontal axis was a log scale while the right is linear. Then it seems about right.
Looks pretty accurate. Columbia Journalism Review farther left than Media Matters is funny as hell, but I can’t dispute it.
I’ve always considered The Atlantic to be quite moderate, maybe just left of center.