A Daily Update on Bias in the News

It is well known that there is bias across all news media.  To date, tribalism has led many folks to cancel news seen to be too partisan.  Some folks refuse to watch Fox News or News Max because of the apparent conservative bias.  Many conservatives refuse to listen to CNN or other "mainstream" media which is believed to be biased or "fake news."

My purpose here is to start a regular survey of the most popular web news sources.  Web news is selected since stories are available for anyone to cross check.  I don't know if I will be able to do this every day but I will attempt to do this on a regular basis.

For purposes of this survey, I am selecting from the 50 most popular new web sites which I am taking from this source:

https://pressgazette.co.uk/most-popular-websites-news-us-monthly/

My goal in this survey to identify the following topics:

  • News stories not covered (news stories prominently displayed in one site, not displayed in others)
  • Misleading headlines (story content does not back up the title)
  • Partisan Headline (stories that depend on opinion/perspective but which are not called out as opinion)
  • Missing Citation of Facts (stories that make claims but in the story itself does not include any reference to the fact cited or which justifies an opinion)
  • Conspiracy Theory: Any opinion or news piece that cites questionable sources (no firm credentials, expertise, or statement of facts) and does not cite any qualification about the source (it is acceptable to report on conspiracy theories as long as the context is clear, as opposed to presenting conspiracy theories as fact)
  • Name calling and Unprofessionalism:  Featured stores that use us vs them labeling, name calling, etc. which are not quoted.  (It is fair to quote someone as doing this but proper journalism should not engage in this level of communication even in op/ed pieces) 

Over time, it should be interesting to see which news sources are most guilty of doing this.  Since this is web news, it should be straight forward to call this out (assuming that the source doesn't take down the lower quality content).

At the time I am starting this survey, the following web sites have been identified as the most 50 most popular in 2021:

  1. cnn.com:  367.5m visits a year
  2. nytimes.com:  355.5m visits a year
  3. msn.com:  335.1m visits a year
  4. foxnews.com:  229.9m visits a year
  5. news.google.com:  170.6 m visits a year
  6. finance.yahoo.com:  159.6m visits a year
  7. washingtonpost.com: 119.1m visits a year
  8. nypost.com: 109.7m visits a year
  9. news.yahoo.com:  103.8m visits a year
  10. dailymail.co.uk:  103.3m visits a year
  11. cnbc.com:  102.7m visits a year
  12. bbc.com:  101m visits a year
  13. usatoday.com:  75.2m visits a year
  14. people.com:  65.7m visits a year
  15. theguardian.com:  59.8m visits a year
  16. nbcnews.com: 54.3m visits a year
  17. wsj.com: 52.6m visits a year
  18. forbes.com: 50.6m visits a year
  19. businessinsider.com: 47.5m visits a year
  20. huffpost.com:  44.6m visits a year
  21. usnews.com: 43.5m visits a year
  22. cheatsheet.com: 42.6m visits a year
  23. drudgereport.com: 42.1m visits a year
  24. breitbart.com: 41m visits a year
  25. buzzfeed.com: 37.4m visits a year
  26. politico.com: 36.6m visits a year
  27. bloomberg.com: 32.4m visits a year
  28. thehill.com: 30.5m visits a year
  29. reuters.com: 30.3m visits a year
  30. apnews.com: 30.2m visits a year
  31. patch.com:  29.8m visits a year
  32. cbsnews.com: 28.2m visits a year
  33. thedailybeast.com: 28m visits a year
  34. latimes.com: 26.8m visits a year
  35. abcnews.go.com: 26.8m visits a year
  36. thegatewaypundit.com:  26.6m visits a year
  37. newsmax.com: 25.2m visits a year
  38. atlantablackstar.com: 24.6m visits a year
  39. zerohedge.com: 22.6m visits a year
  40. newsweek.com: 22.3m visits a year
  41. theatlantic.com: 21m visits a year
  42. theepochtimes.com: 20.1m visits a year
  43. sfgate.com: 19.1m visits a year
  44. dailywire.com: 18.5m visits a year
  45. independent.co.uk: 18.1m visits a year
  46. usmagazine.com: 18m visits a year
  47. theverge.com: 17.7m visits a year
  48. the-sun.com:  17.7m visits a year
  49. ksl.com: 17.3m visits a year
  50. variety.com: 16.7m visits a year
I am also selecting news sites from here:

  1. NPR News
  2. New York Daily News
  3. Chicago Tribune
  4. Boston.com
  5. Salon
  6. The Seattle Times
  7. The Mercury News
  8. KTLA
  9. Chicago Sun-Times
  10. Washington Times
  11. Newsday
  12. Observer
  13. The Intercept
  14. Boston Herald
  15. WFLA
  16. Daily Herald
  17. KXAN
  18. Gothamist
  19. Automotive News
  20. L.A. Weekly
  21. amNY
  22. kron4
  23. PhillyVoice
  24. WSVN
  25. Pioneer Press
  26. Village Voice
  27. Chicago Reader
  28. Detroit Metro Times
  29. WIVB-TV
  30. Riverfront Times
  31. City Limits
  32. Times of San Diego
  33. MinnPost
  34. The Alike
  35. The Published Reporter
  36. New York Sun
  37. The Texas Observer
  38. Miami Today
  39. Wolf Daily
  40. USA Thrill
  41. Zbout
  42. ENM News
  43. The USA Print
  44. YF-USA
  45. Atlanta Intown Paper
  46. The Denver Post
  47. WGN-TV
  48. WTOP
  49. Seattle PI
  50. Christian Science Monitor
  51. Bolt Posts
  52. Verdict
  53. Billy Penn Philadelphia News
  54. The Press-Enterprise
  55. New Right Network
  56. True News Blog
  57. Miami Herald
  58. WorldTruth.tv
  59. US Breaking News
  60. Forest Hills Times
  61. NextShark
  62. Foxton News
  63. SpookNews

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