Media Bias Charts

[bryan]

It's a pretty well known reality that people tend to gravitate toward content that reinforces their own beliefs and predispositions.

To balance that out and avoid living exclusively within your own biased information bubble, I think it's healthy to at least visit alternative sites that have been rated as relatively unbiased and reliable. For something you feel especially passionate about (or outraged about), see how more centrist/neutral sites are reporting on that same content - see if that moderates your view to some degree.

Attached are a couple of charts from two different sources (allsides.com and Ad Fontes media) that attempt to rate the bias of various news/information outlets and one of them also rates reliability of content. The 3rd attachment is the blow up of the green circle from Ad Fontes "most reliable" category since it's hard to see in the entire chart.

Of course, you can have a problem with the bias raters themselves, but at least some of the news sources (AP, Reuters, WSJ news, NPR news, USA Today, The Hill, etc) are consistent between both media bias surveys.

Just food for thought and balance.

[nailer]

Life truly is a question of balance and our biases help in maintaining our balance. That being said, I don't find it all that difficult to detect an article's political leanings or when the presentation of factual news is being deliberately misrepresented. Probably has something to do with my apolitical nature.

If you can't tell, I enjoyed the graphics.