A new AllSides bias analysis of Apple News found the news aggregator displayed more articles from sources with an AllSides Media Bias Rating™ on the left than the center or right. Overall, 53% of news articles that appeared on Apple News were from sources AllSides rates as Lean Left or Left. Just 1% were from the right, and 25% were from the Center. 

The analysis led AllSides to provide an overall media bias rating of Lean Left for Apple News.

Breaking it down further, 44% of news articles were from Lean Left media outlets, 9% from Left outlets, 25% from Center-rated, 1% from Right outlets, and 0% from Lean Right outlets. Twenty-one percent were from outlets not rated by AllSides.

 

AllSides analyzed the content that appeared in the Apple News “Top Stories” and “Trending Stories” sections over a three-week period from June 19 - July 9, 2023.

Out of 252 total articles analyzed, the five news sources that appeared most often were The Wall Street Journal (Center), CNN (Lean Left), The Washington Post (Lean Left), NBC News (Lean Left), and The Guardian (Lean Left). No sources on the right were among the top 10 outlets displayed on Apple News’ “Top Stories” and “Trending Stories” sections.

In Apple News’ “Top Stories” section, the proportion of sources rated Lean Left was even higher, with 56% of articles from sources that are Lean Left-rated. Just 10% of articles were from Left-rated outlets, 21% were from the  Center, 1% from Right-rated outlets, and 0% from Lean Right-rated outlets. Thirteen percent were not rated. 

In Apple News’ “Trending Stories” section, 31% of articles were from Lean Left-rated outlets, 8% from Left-rated outlets, 29% from Center-rated outlets, 2% from Right-rated outlets, 0% from Lean Right-rated, and 29% from unrated outlets. The stories from unrated outlets were primarily apolitical sources, such as magazines about architecture and cooking.

Visit the full report to view AllSides’ methodology, in-depth findings, and see a full list of articles analyzed.

Apple News hit 125 million monthly active users in 2020.

Conclusion

AllSides has analyzed the bias of multiple news aggregators, including Bing News (Lean Left), Google News (Lean Left), Yahoo News (Lean Left), Drudge Report (Center), and RealClearPolitics (Center).

 

Please contact AllSides for inquiries about this news aggregator bias analysis.

Clare Ashcraft is the Bridging and Bias Specialist at AllSides. She has a Center bias.

Visuals by Andrew Weinzierl, Research and Data Journalist at AllSides (Lean Left bias).

Reviews and edits by Julie Mastrine, Director of Marketing and Media Bias Ratings (Lean Right bias).

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