1. Do you have an app or extension?
  2. Is AllSides secretly biased or hiding a partisan agenda?
  3. Why do you only have American news sources?
  4. How do you rate the bias of a source?
  5. Aren’t you worried that with your ratings being influenced by community votes, they could be gamed by bots?
  6. You’re missing a news source. Can you add it?
  7. How do you decide when to update the media bias rating for a news source?
  8. Why are Left stories shown first at the bottom of the homepage? Isn't that biased?
  9. Why is the order of the headlines seen in Headline Roundups at the top of your news page always different?
  10. I disagree with the outlets you have listed "Center." Doesn't a "Center" rating mean neutral and unbiased?
  11. How does AllSides make money?
  12. Who owns AllSides?

Do you have an app or extension?

Yes! You can download the AllSides mobile app for iOS and Android here.

In addition to the AllSides mobile app, some few partner organizations and friends have created apps and extensions that use AllSides Media Bias Ratings™:

  • Bias Finder is a Google Chrome browser extension that immediately displays a website's AllSides Media Bias Rating.
  • Capitol Call is a mobile app that allows you to customize a news feed using AllSides-rated sources, helping to ensure you’re maintaining a balanced feed.
  • Newstrition® is an interactive tool by Freedom Forum Institute and Our.News that makes it easy for the public to make informed decisions about what is real and what is “junk” news.

Get more details on these apps and extensions here.

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Is AllSides secretly biased or hiding a partisan agenda?

Everyone is biased. To ensure a fair balance, AllSides has a multi-partisan staff made up of people from the left, right, center, and everything in between. We are transparent about the political biases of our team members, as well as our co-founders, partners, and funding sources. We are proud to be made up of and work with people from all across the political bias spectrum, as bridging divides is essentially the whole point here at AllSides. We are transparent about our biases and lay them out fully in this blog post. We have consciously created a hybrid revenue model so that we don't have to pander to one side to make money.

AllSides displays the news as it is covered from a variety of perspectives. We do have an editorial bias. Read our Editorial Philosophy to learn about what we cover and why.

We've surveyed our readers and found they are pretty evenly split among left, right and mixed political leanings — about one third each.

Whenever we write a blog or newsletter, we review it as a team — not just for grammar and spelling, but more importantly, for bias. We want to make sure we are providing a platform for balanced news that is not influenced by our individual biases. When we review sources, we don’t change the rating just because one of our Editors thinks the source leans a little too much in one direction. We have a systematic way of analyzing sources for bias — read more about our media bias rating methods.

When you see something from us that seems unbalanced or incorrect, please tell us about it. We are always improving our systems.

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Why do you only have American news sources?

At this time, AllSides only focuses on American sources, but we would love to eventually expand to include more international sources as well. Our media bias rating scale is based on American politics, and we are a team of (mostly) Americans who do not have much experience with international politics. We understand there may be a need for media bias transparency in other countries, and hope to eventually expand our team and knowledge base to be more inclusive of other nations.


How do you rate the bias of a source?

Our AllSides Media Bias Ratings are determined based on data gathered from a variety of sources. Our media bias ratings take into account the perspectives of people from all over the political bias spectrum — not just one individual. We use methods including Blind Bias Surveys, Editorial Reviews, third party research (such as the 2005 UCLA study), independent research, and community feedback. Learn more about our Media Bias Rating Methods.

We rate media bias in order to free people from their filter bubbles so they can better understand the world — and each other. Read about the importance of a balanced news diet vs “unbiased news."

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Aren’t you worried that with your ratings being influenced by community votes, they could be gamed by bots?

Our system is more sophisticated than that. We use community votes as an “early warning system” that our bias ratings may be off. Our ratings don’t change based on community input alone. A member of our team has to physically edit the rating of a source for it to change. If bots flooded a page and overwhelmingly voted to have a Left source be rated as Right, we are merely alerted to the fact that we may need to re-approach our rating for that source.

We don’t change a media bias rating based on community votes alone. Votes may prompt us to review a source using a blind bias survey, editorial review, or other methods. Learn more about how we rate media bias.

Lastly, please note our ratings are normalized to reflect the entire nation, rather than any specific group.

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You’re missing a news source. Can you add it?

Absolutely! Check our list of media bias ratings first to make sure we don’t already have it listed. If not, email us with the name of the source, as well as what you think its bias is, and we’ll work on adding it as soon as we can.

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How do you decide when to update the media bias rating for a news source?

As a team, we keep an eye on news sources over time. We look more closely at a news source when we notice its bias is shifting, when we get new data, or when feedback from the community indicates our media bias rating may be wrong.

We take suggestions from our community in several ways. People directly email us or send suggestions via our Facebook and Twitter. Our community can also vote on whether they "agree" or "disagree" with our ratings directly on our Media Bias Ratings page.

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Why are Left stories shown first at the bottom of the homepage? Isn't that biased?

We rotate the order of headlines in our Headline Roundups (which can be seen at the top of the AllSides homepage) precisely to avoid this kind of bias.

But in some cases, we found it could be confusing to users if we continually rotate the order. That's why you'll see a standard Left-Center-Right headline order further down the homepage. When the AllSides homepage is viewed on desktop, additional stories are shown in columns at the bottom of the page, where we list Left stories on the left side of the page, Center stories in the center, and Right stories on the right side of the screen. On mobile, the columns are replaced by buttons arranged on top of one another — Left stories are shown on the top, Center in the middle, and Right stories are towards the bottom.

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Why is the order of the headlines featured in the Headline Roundups at the top of your news page always different?

We rotate the order of the Left, Right and Center stories for our Headline Roundups to avoid biasing our coverage in favor of the Left, which otherwise would always be listed first, and read by people more often.

In addition, it is good to require people to actually read headlines, instead of just skimming and assuming they know what each side will say.

Our goal is to be unbiased, and this helps us to achieve that. We also hope to inspire critical thought about what is in the news.

We appreciate that this can sometimes seem confusing, so further down the homepage, we do display a standard Left-Center-Right headline order that doesn't change.

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I disagree with the outlets you have listed "Center." Doesn't a "Center" rating mean neutral and unbiased?

A "Center" rating does not necessarily mean a source is unbiased, neutral, or always reasonable. It simply means the source or writer rated does not predictably show opinions favoring either end of the political spectrum — conservative or liberal. It's important to note that sometimes, a media outlet with a Center rating misses important perspectives, leaving out valid arguments from the left or right.

While it may be easy to think that we should only consume media from Center outlets, AllSides believes Center is not necessarily the answer. By reading only Center outlets, we may still encounter bias and omission of important issues and perspectives. For this reason, it is important to consume a balanced news diet. Read more about what "Center" media bias rating means here.

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How does AllSides make money?

AllSides is largely funded by Sustaining Memberships, donations, minimal ads on our website, and services to newsrooms, schools, nonprofits, and other entities. We also have a nonprofit arm, AllSides Education Fund.

AllSides consciously created a hybrid revenue model because there are dangers to other models. The current media business model rewards clickbait and misinformation because this drives advertising revenue. Meanwhile, nonprofit funding can contribute to bias because often, one large donor will rule the show. AllSides is a mix of all of the above, so no one funding source can overwhelm us and pull us away from our mission. Core to our success is our left-center-right credibility, and we have consciously designed a system that allows us to pull revenue from a variety of sources. If we break away from that, everything falls apart. It is risky, but helps us to retain our credibility. Read more about our biases and funding here.

AllSides achieved GOLD status as one of the 17 Most Fundable Companies® by Pepperdine Graziadio Business School in 2023.

We have also established AllSides as a public benefit corporation. As a public benefit corporation, what sets AllSides apart from a regular corporation is that we balance the interests of stockholders, key stakeholders, and a specific public benefit. A regular corporation will just balance the interests of its stockholders and key stakeholders. But our executive leadership does not have to make purely profit-motivated decisions and can always do the right thing to support our mission — even if it’s not the most profitable choice. In other words, if some investor or business wants to give us a huge check to do something that goes against our principles, we can just say no. No fuss, no legal consequences.

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Who owns AllSides?

You can visit our Ownership page to read about our ownership, revenue sources, audience, and business model.

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