Challenge accepted.
Rupert Murdoch, the founder and current chairman of Fox Corp (owner of Fox News) first said the above quote in an article on the Salon website in 2001.
And even though it’s from almost 20 years ago, I can’t think of a more telling quote about the current environment of news in America.
Was there actually any iota of truth to that statement?
“Fake news!”
“Mainstream media!”
“Hoax!”
All of these phrases seem to be shouted from the rooftops everywhere we look these days.
On TV, on the internet, social media — even in private conversations with family and friends.
This has weighed on me (and probably you too) for a while now.
Not only have normally friendly conversations turned vitriolic, but it seems a candid discussion about actual facts is getting more and more impossible every day.
My curiosity finally got the best of me and I spent a huge amount of time over the last couple of weeks collecting and analyzing related data.
I explored the subject of what truly can be considered fake news today.
- Which sites are actually biased?
- Which news sources consistently provide more fiction than facts?
- How impactful are the relationships between reliability, bias, and traffic?
I explore these questions and many more in the following analysis.
Enjoy!
Table of contents
- Methods and sources
- Legend
- Interesting data
- Which websites can be considered ‘Fake News’?
- Which news sources should we be reading?
- Who are the 10 most biased news sources?
- Who are the 10 most neutral news sources?
- Who are the 10 most liberally biased news sources?
- Who are the 10 most conservatively biased news sources?
- What news websites get the most traffic in the USA?
- Which sites can be considered contributors to echo-chambers?
- How many news sources use paywalls?
- Graphical data and correlations
- Website visits vs News media bias
- Reliability vs Unique American visitors in July
- Bias vs Reliability
- Monthly visits per person vs Reliability
- Commentary
- Full list of news websites analyzed
Be extremely skeptical when reading these news sources:
- 🔴World Truth TV — 11.6%
- 🟢National Enquirer — 15.1%
- 🔴The Gateway Pundit — 19.4%
- 🔴InfoWars — 20.3%
- 🔴NewsPunch — 22.5%
- 🔵Wonkette — 23.9%
- 🔴WorldNetDaily — 26.5%
- 🔴Twitchy — 26.7%
- 🔵Palmer Report — 27.6%
- 🔴PJ Media — 28.7%
- 🔵Bipartisan Report — 30.1%
- 🔵Occupy Democrats — 31.3%
- 🔴Breitbart — 32.2%
- 🔵Alternet — 33.4%
- 🔴Conservative Review — 34.1%
- 🔴The American Spectator — 34.4%
- 🔴The Federalist — 34.7%
- 🔵ShareBlue — 35.5%
- 🔵Crooks and Liars — 36%
- 🔴American Thinker — 36.1%
- 🔵Daily Kos — 36.2%
- 🔴Daily Caller — 37.4%
The following 15 news sources ranked the highest under this metric.
- 🟢AP, 79.2%
- 🟢Reuters, 78.9%
- 🟢Weather.com, 75.9%
- 🟢ABC News, 73.9%
- 🟢The Advocate, 73.9%
- 🟢Bloomberg, 72.9%
- 🟢National Public Radio, 72.9%
- 🟢Wall Street Journal, 72.1%
- 🟢The Hill, 72.1%
- 🟢Financial Times, 71.9%
- 🟢LA Times, 70.8%
- 🟢PBS, 70.6%
- 🟢Al Jazeera, 70.5%
- 🟢CBS, 70.3%
- 🟢Fortune, 69.8%
Avoid these sources if you value neutrality:
- 🔵Wonkette, -31.15
- 🔴InfoWars, 31.05
- 🔴American Thinker, 29.82
- 🔵Palmer Report, -29.37
- 🔴NewsPunch, 28.58
- 🔴The Gateway Pundit, 28.55
- 🔵Occupy Democrats, -25.59
- 🔴Conservative Review, 25.3
- 🔵ShareBlue, -24.95
- 🔴Life News, 24.75
News media to consider the most neutral sources:
- 🟢The Hill, 0.09
- 🟢Forbes, 0.2
- 🟢Christian Science Monitor, -0.21
- 🟢Business Insider, -0.38
- 🟢Fortune, 0.43
- 🟢Marketwatch, -0.54
- 🟢Financial Times, 0.62
- 🟢Bloomberg, -0.85
- 🟢Reuters, -0.95
- 🟢AP, -1.06
Based on the data and in my opinion, the following websites are harming the news industry and our political discourse.
- 🔵Palmer Report — 27.6% reliability score, 8.2 average monthly visits
- 🔵Crooks and Liars — 36%, 6.2
- 🔵Daily Kos — 36.2%, 5.3
- 🔴Breitbart — 32.2%, 5.3
- 🔴Twitchy — 26.7%, 5.1
- 🔴Fox News — 41.8%, 4.9
- 🔴The Gateway Pundit — 19.4%, 4.8
- 🔴PJ Media — 28.7%, 4.4
- 🔴InfoWars — 20.3%, 4.3
- 🔵FreeSpeech TV — 38.7%, 4.0
- 🔴RedState — 41.3%, 3.7
- 🔵Wonkette — 23.9%, 3.6
- 🔴American Thinker — 36.1%, 3.6
- 🔵Alternet — 33.4%, 3.2
- 🔴Daily Caller — 37.4, 3.1
- 🔴Daily Wire — 38.1%, 3.0
This does not bring us together.
It leads to us doubting our neighbors, our friends, our parents, and other important people in our lives.
Eternal distrust.
You can’t believe what you hear.
Every man for himself.
It seems that many people these days, mistakenly in my opinion, search for sources based on what they already want to hear.
They look for articles to confirm their suspicions. Their thoughts and feelings.
Right or left, it doesn’t matter. If you search on Google for something to back up your feeling on a subject (regardless of truth) — you will find it.
There’s an article for everything now.
Opinions being added to the news cycle has corrupted the impartiality of it.
This is not how we come together as a world, as a nation.
We must be better than this.
It’s my belief that many of these websites, their owners, and their anchors are one of the largest absolute causes of anger in the world today.
Be better, people.
J.J. Pryor Sep 9·19
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