In a Blind Bias Survey, we ask people to self-report their own political bias (left, lean left, center, lean right, or right) and then present them with content from media outlets. We show them numerous front-page headlines and the first few paragraphs from two articles from a given media outlet, stripping them of any identifying information, and ask respondents to rate the outlet’s bias.
While our Blind Bias Surveys are a uniquely powerful and fair way to rate the bias of news sources without giving more weight to one group over another, they alone don’t always capture the full picture. They’re essentially snapshots of the top stories on one day. That misses the bias that may show itself in other stories, in pictures, and on other days.
We had roughly equal numbers of people who identified as having a personal bias of lean left, center, or lean right take the survey (529, 605, and 595, respectively), but had much fewer people with a left or right bias take the survey (233 on the left and just 153 on the right). Therefore, the charts below show normalized data.
How People Across All Bias Groups Rated Media Outlets (Normalized Data)
The Epoch Times: Majority of Respondents Rate The Epoch Times as Center
BBC: BBC Exhibits a Slight Lean-Left Bias
The New York Times: 68 Percent of Respondents Say The New York Times Shows a Lean-Left or Left Bias
Bloomberg: Majority Sees Bloomberg as Lean-Left Bias
The AP: Majority Sees The AP as Center
Takeaways
What can you take away from this information? The media landscape is changing rapidly due to increased polarization. Several major source ratings were recently changed after Blind Bias Surveys and editorial reviews. In addition, prevalent media bias means it’s important to always consume a balanced diet of news from sources on each side of the political spectrum.We separate our community into 5 groups and ask them to report their own personal bias: left, lean left, center, lean right, and right. You can see below how many responses we got from each group and how each group rated the bias of news sources. These graphs illustrate the ideological diversity of the survey respondents.
The horizontal X-axis shows the self-reported personal bias of the respondent. The vertical Y-axis displays how many of the respondents in each bias category thought the media outlet had a specific bias.
So, for example, the graph below shows that 49 people who personally rated their political bias as left saw The Epoch Times as lean right; 245 people who personally identified as lean left saw The Epoch Times as center; 77 people who personally identified as center saw The Epoch Times as lean right; and so on.
Check out all the charts showing how people of different political leanings rated the BBC, The New York Times, Bloomberg, and The Associated Press.
Many people who say their personal bias is lean left, center, or lean right see the BBC as lean left or center. The majority of people on the right view the BBC as lean left, and the majority of people on the left see the BBC as center.
A majority of people across all bias groups view The New York Times as either lean left or left.
A majority of people across all bias groups see Bloomberg as lean left or left.