Roca News

Roca News Rated Center in March/April 2026 Small Group Editorial Review

Roca News’ weekly newsletter, The Current, was rated nearly dead Center (-0.01) in a March/April 2026 Small Group Editorial Review by a panel of expert right, center and left reviewers. 

Roca News, which mainly publishes on Substack, also publishes a daily newsletter for longer-form stories, mini documentaries, and on-the-ground reporting “from places the mainstream media fails to cover.”

Roca says it is a “Gen-Z” news source that appeals to a wide range of perspectives, while “news outlets favor negative, partisan, and alarmist news.” The newsletter adopts a conversational style, incorporating interactive questions for subscribers and witty humor.

During the days that panelists reviewed The Current, Roca primarily covered global geopolitics, offbeat science/tech, and trend-driven/cultural stories, often selecting topics that lend themselves to narrative-driven, digestible storytelling rather than traditional beat reporting. 

A Lean Left panelist said that Roca is “proof that Gen Z is perhaps harder to polarize along left-right lines than older generations,” describing its coverage as “all over the map.”

“Sometimes overly credible of the Trump admin, other times overly skeptical; sometimes extreme, sometimes milquetoast — but none really felt out of place with each other,” the panelist said. 

Roca’s news was absent of the most common types of media bias. A Lean Right panelist said while Roca is mostly fair and balanced, they may exhibit “a very minor lean left bias that appears in some copy, but it’s hard to say if it’s truly lean left or if they are just skeptical of Trump/anti-war, since most of the editorializing came through on geopolitical stories.”

A Center reviewer agreed. “There is some skepticism toward the Trump administration, but the newsletter also pokes fun at Kamala Harris,” the reviewer said. “The skepticism seems less rooted in political differences and more in a mistrust of any politician’s authenticity and honesty.”

Articles reviewed included: 

• The Return of Kamala
  • “Pokes fun at Kamala Harris’ rebrand, but not in a partisan way,” a Center reviewer said. “She was widely criticized for trying too hard to appeal to young voters, even by those on the left. Mostly non-political otherwise.”
• US Boots on the Ground in Iran?
  • This story was mainly balanced, according to the Center reviewer. A Lean Right panelist identified a slight lean left bias through minor editorializing: “Slant in the lede: ‘While President Trump spent last week talking about negotiations and potentially winding down the war in Iran, this weekend suggests the reality is far different.’”
• “Open the F*****’ Strait”
  • A Lean Left panelist said the story “has a distinctly critical tone toward Trump’s and Hegseth’s decisions, describing their actions with words like “flip-flopping” and ‘unusual’ (LL slant).” 
  • For the remainder of the newsletter, the panelist said the “Rundown stories are all quite balanced.”
• A Record Trip from Earth
  • This is one of the strongest cross-panel consensus pieces, with all three reviewers rating it as largely balanced, with only minor stylistic/editorial issues.
  • “Iran section at times feels overconfident about Trump having the situation under control & owning the leverage (slight LR slant). But also mentions negative impact on markets — important balance from the left,” a Lean Left reviewer said.

Additional articles reviewed: 

• Iran's New Regime
• The Wolf of Washington, DC
• Pilot Rescued from Iran
• Two Weeks to Slow the War
• The Uranium, Skyler. Where Is It?
• Hegseth's $200B Venmo Request
• ICE to Rescue Airports?

Roca News Rated Center In Dec. 2025 Independent Review

An AllSides reviewer noted that Roca News had a casual style that portrayed anti-legacy news bias, slightly pro-Israel bias, and repeatedly omitted sources. They noted that Roca News generally does not cite sources in its short form video content. Some of the content was from interviews, while others relied on anecdotal evidence. 

Several articles highlighted a story choice that is of interest to members of the left and right, such as money in politics. A story on inner-city crime took a Lean Left position, saying it was due to "insufficient and poorly allocated school funding, 'ghost guns,' a lack of good working-class jobs." The right would attribute the state of inner-city crime to other factors, such as broken families, perverse incentives due to government welfare programs, demographics, and Democrat policies like cutting police funding.