In April and May 2022, AllSides conducted a media bias analysis of Yahoo! News, finding that its content curation and homepage top stories greatly favored stories from news media outlets that have a left-leaning perspective.

An analysis of 588 curated articles published by Yahoo! News in April 2022 showed that 65% were from a media outlet that has a Left or Lean Left AllSides Media Bias Rating, and just 5% were from outlets AllSides rates as on the right.

Further, Yahoo! News’ homepage – when uncustomized by the reader – favored the left. In a 10-day period, 55% of the top 15 stories featured on Yahoo! News’ homepage were from outlets rated on the left, while just 1% were from outlets on the right.

Out of the 150 stories AllSides analyzed from Yahoo! News’ homepage, only one story from an outlet rated on the right appeared  – meaning that out of the 10 days analyzed, only once did an outlet on the right appear among the top 15 stories. (See full report for details).

 

Top Media Outlets Curated by Yahoo! News

AllSides found that Yahoo! News favored stories from the Associated Press (Lean Left), Insider (Lean Left), Daily Beast (Left), and CBS News (Lean Left) in its homepage curation during the days analyzed.

The top 10 most prominent outlets published on Yahoo! News during the time frame analyzed encompassed 64% of all coverage (379 out of 588 stories). They are as follows, with the percent of total stories analyzed displayed for each:

Five of the top 10 outlets curated by Yahoo! News were rated Lean Left by AllSides, and another two were rated Left. Just one outlet right of center made the list: Fox News (Right bias).

Analysis of Yahoo! News’ homepage, specifically, yielded similar results. The top 10 most prominent outlets encompassed 57% of the coverage on the days analyzed (85 of 150 stories). They are as follows, with the percent of total stories analyzed displayed for each:

Six of the top 10 outlets were rated Lean Left by AllSides, and two were rated Left. One was rated Center (Reuters) and one was Not Rated (“In The Know” by Yahoo). Noticeably, the top five most-prominent news outlets were rated as “Lean Left” or “Left” by AllSides – and includes Yahoo! News itself.

At least 1 in 4 stories featured in both methods of the analysis were from news outlets that are not rated by AllSides as of May 2022. Many of these consisted of local and international outlets (e.g. Ukrayinska Pravda, a Ukrainian newspaper, which covered many stories pertaining to the Ukraine-Russia war).

 

Average Position of Outlets on the Left and Right

AllSides also looked at the position of stories on the homepage of Yahoo! News. This is relevant because a story located in the first position on the page may be clicked on more often than a story in the fifth position.

On the 10 days analyzed, AllSides found that the average position of the first Lean Left outlet was 1.5 (meaning a story from a Lean Left source was most often present in the first or second position). The average position of the first Center outlet was 7.3, Left outlet was 9.4, and Not Rated outlet was 6.5. Outlets on the right didn’t register above the 15th position on the homepage.

A story from an outlet rated Lean Left was also the top story in 8 out of 10 days. Similarly, at least 3 of the top 5 stories each day were from outlets rated Lean Left.

 

Takeaways & Considerations

At AllSides, we believe that everyone is biased – and that’s okay. What is a problem, however, is hidden media bias, which can manipulate and divide us by not giving us a balanced view. Read more about media bias on our website.

The purpose of this analysis was to determine the political bias of the media outlets that Yahoo! News most often curates. This can help readers to better understand if they are getting a full view from this media outlet. 

Our analysis only considered content taken during a small section of time: April 26, 2022 – May 5th, 2022, and should not be interpreted as where Yahoo! News currently stands every day.

 

Read the full report on AllSides’ media bias analysis of Yahoo! News, which includes additional findings, background, and methodology.

Please contact AllSides for media or other inquiries about this analysis.