A new AllSides analysis found RealClearPolitics to be largely balanced, confirming our Center AllSides Media Bias Rating™ for the news aggregator.
AllSides found 32% of articles displayed on RealClearPolitics’ homepage over a two-week period in Jan. 2023 were from media outlets on the left and 35% were from sources on the right. 

AllSides examined 622 articles that appeared on RCP’s homepage from January 15-28, 2023. Of those articles, 13% of articles were from Left-rated sources, 18% from Lean Left-rated sources, 22% from Center rated sources, 20% from Lean Right-rated sources, and 15% from Right-rated sources.

The top 10 news outlets that were curated on the RealClearPolitics’ homepage during the time period analyzed were Washington Examiner (Lean Right), RealClearPolitics (Center) original content, New York Post (Lean Right), The Hill (Center), CNN (Left), Fox News (Right), The Atlantic (Left), Financial Times (Center), The Guardian (Lean Left), and The Federalist (Right).

Note that AllSides has not done an analysis of RealClearPolitics' original content only; future analyses are planned.

The interactive graphic below shows all the outlets curated by RealClearPolitics during the analysis period and what percent of the time each outlet appeared, grouped by respective AllSides Media Bias Rating:

 

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

Top Stories

RealClearPolitics’ top stories section (also described as “Morning” and “Evening Editions” by RealClearPolitics) were collected from the RealClearPolitics homepage. This amounted to 361 articles analyzed in total for this method.

Of the top stories, 18% came from Left-rated media outlets, 16% Lean Left-rated, 19% Center-rated, 18% Lean Right-rated, 19% Right-rated, and 10% Not Rated. There was little difference in bias distribution between the Morning Edition and the Evening Edition, but the Evening Edition did have significantly more outlets listed that were Not Rated by AllSides, and less Lean Right articles than the Morning Edition.

The New York Post (Lean Right) and RealClearPolitics (Center) were tied for being curated the most often in the top stories section, with The Atlantic (Left) in the third spot.

Editorials

AllSides also analyzed the four editorials posted by RealClearPolitics on a daily basis – 56 articles were gathered in total.

Editorials during the 2-week period came from across the spectrum, but mostly Lean Right outlets:

  • 32% of editorials from Lean Right sources
  • 25% Not Rated
  • 20% Lean Left
  • 14% Center
  • 5% Left
  • 4% Right

The New York Post was the most frequently curated in RealClearPolitics’ Editorial Section by a wide margin, making up 14% of articles. This was followed by Washington Examiner (Lean Right), TIPP Insights (Not Rated), and Financial Times (Center) each independently making up about 7% of editorial content. 

Left Sidebar

The last part of the homepage AllSides included in the analysis was the left sidebar on the homepage, organized by daily topics and featuring curated articles. The analysis found that over a two-week period, 11% of articles were from outlets rated Right, 20% Lean Right, 30% Center, 22% Lean Left, and 7% Left.

The top outlets curated most often on the left sidebar were The Washington Examiner (Lean Right), RealClearPolitics (Center) original content, and The Hill (Center).

Conclusion

RCP’s AllSides Media Bias Rating™ has been based on Independent Reviews of RealClearPolitics conducted in April 2020 and July 2021, as well as an Editorial Review conducted in September 2020. The Editorial Review found that RealClearPolitics was very balanced, often displaying a view from the left and the right next to one another on similar subjects, though coverage overall was slightly to the right on average. The Jan. 2023 analysis further confirmed these findings.

As of March 1, 2023, AllSides’ Media Bias Rating for RealClearPolitics was Center (0.5), slightly on the right side.

To view the full RealClearPolitics bias analysis, which includes details on methodologies, click here.

 

Please contact AllSides for inquiries about this analysis.

Clare Ashcraft is the Bridging and Bias Assistant at AllSides (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).

 

Media Bias