The Gateway Pundit

About The Gateway Pundit's Bias Rating

The Gateway Pundit is a news media source with an AllSides Media Bias Rating™ of Right.

What a "Right" Rating Means

Sources with an AllSides Media Bias Rating of Right display media bias in ways that strongly align with conservative, traditional, or right-wing thought and/or policy agendas. A Right bias is the most conservative rating on the political spectrum.

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September 2023 Independent Review Confirms Right Rating

An AllSides reviewer independently reviewed Gateway Pundit's content and concluded that the previous rating of Right was correct. The reviewer noted several overt allusions to right-wing themes and priorities, such as placing the tagline "WHERE HOPE FINALLY MADE A COMEBACK" juxtaposed over images of people wearing the Trump campaign's "Make America Great Again" hats.

Headlines displayed sensationalism, often including qualifiers like "WATCH LIVE," "Here You Go, America," and "WOW!" Coverage focused on topics of interest to the far right, including the January 6 Capitol riot, Joe Biden's age, Kari Lake's Arizona election fraud claims, and criticisms of migrants in New York. 

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As of September 2024, people have voted on the AllSides Media Bias Rating for The Gateway Pundit. On average, those who disagree with our rating think this source has a Lean Right bias.

As of September 2024, AllSides has low or initial confidence in our Right rating for The Gateway Pundit. If we perform more bias reviews and gather consistent data, this confidence level will increase.

Additional Information

Third-party Accusations of Bias

Gateway Pundit has often been accused of right-wing bias, misinformation, and fake news, particularly during the Trump era. In 2017, The Washington Post called it "a right-wing site known for trafficking in falsehoods." In 2018, CNN Business called it "a far-right website known for peddling misinformation and conspiracy theories," and Newsweek called it "a far-right fake-news website." 

Media Matters, The Daily Beast, and Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Republican anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project, have each referred to The Gateway Pundit's founder, Jim Hoft, as the "dumbest man on the internet." Media Matters describes him as "a pro-Trump conspiracy theorist and hoaxer."

Much of this criticism deals with Gateway Pundit's elevation of debunked theories of fraud in the 2016 and 2020 elections. Former President Donald Trump reportedly urged his advisors to read the Gateway Pundit following the 2020 election. 

In August 2021, The Daily Beast reported: "According to a former senior Trump White House official and another person with direct knowledge of the matter, during the final weeks of his presidency, administration officials saw Trump on multiple occasions holding printed-out pages of Gateway Pundit articles in the White House, sometimes in the Oval Office. The former senior official recalled one instance when Trump handed them a page printed from the website, which nonsensically alleged massive pro-Biden fraud, and told the official to find out more and to do something about it." The official said he "didn’t really do anything about it."

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Owner: Jim Hoft