A Centrist's Guide to Media Bias and Usefulness

Which established big media outfits do a good job in producing high quality news reporting? And where do they really stand on the political spectrum?

There’s a viral chart that’s been floating around for nearly a month now that claims to answer both questions, but it’s not really doing a good job in capturing which news organizations are good and where they objectively sit on the political spectrum.

Fortunately, there’s a better version out there. Credit for tweaking the original version to produce the following chart belongs to Adrian Sjoberg, which we’re stealing directly from Doc Palmer!

Long time readers will recognize that when we link to or quote news stories, we tend to do so from the organizations in the top-oval shown on the chart, particularly those that fall within the range from “Skews liberal” on the left to “Skews conservative” on the right.

But then, that’s almost exactly what you should expect us to do!

Two good sources of news and analysis that missed the cut include Maclean’s (skews conservative) and Wired (skews liberal).

We also like to pay attention to a handful of up-and-comers for in-depth news coverage that’s didn’t make the chart, so we also recommend RealClearInvestigations (bias TBD, since it’s brand new), The Intercept (skews liberal) and ProPublica (skews liberal).