Media: Factuality and Bias – Part 1
So it has been said for years that far more journalists would be considered liberal than conservative – and also that most of the media on TV would be a least a bit left-leaning in it’s reporting and commentary. In the late 1990s, however, the emergence of Fox News intrigued me. Though I never watched Fox News much, I did become a bit curious about how conservative journalists might report about major national issues. Recently I encountered Ground News – and was surprised at how many reports appear in either left-oriented or right-oriented media.
Ground News does not generate reports. Instead, it collects daily news stories from over 50,000 sources. Each day, Ground News, processes over 30,000 news articles each day and delivers them with a color-coded bias rating – from extreme left to extreme right.
The Ground News Bias and Factuality ratings are based on the average rating of three independent news monitoring organizations: All Sides, Ad Fontes Media, and Media Bias Fact Check. Each news monitoring organization has their own methodology – including editorial reviews, blind bias surveys, independent reviews, and third party research. Ground News uses a combination of these ratings to offer the most comprehensive analysis.
On Ground News Bias and Factuality there are two very helpful sections – Bias Rating and Factuality Score.
In the Bias Rating section, Ground News categorizes lists seven categories: Far Left, Left, Lean Left, Center, Lean Right, Right and Far Right. Each category is clearly summarized.
In the Factuality section are listed three ratings: Low, Mixed and High. When the score is displayed on a news source, it represents the assessment of the reporting practices of the news publication. The score takes into consideration things like the credibility of sources used, the speed at which corrections are made, and whether the language retains context.
From Online News Association: “Ground News is a multi-sourced collection of the world’s news. We gather related articles in one place so readers can easily compare diverse perspectives from more than 50,000 news sources around the world. Our data-driven platform empowers readers to evaluate the political leanings, reliability and ownership of the sources reporting on an issue while identifying trends in media coverage. We’re not better news. We’re a better way to read it.”
When I started this, I assumed it would only lead to a single post. Now that I've resumed working with it, it has become clear to me that there is much more to investigate and share. So there will be at least one more post on this topic.