By Patricia L Johnson

Last night the subject of media bias came up in relation to Associated Press reporting.  Earlier in the day I read an Associated Press article and was relaying the information to my husband and a visitor.

Both gentlemen immediately accused me of reading a far left publication that could not be believed due to its extreme bias.  Personally, I have always considered AP as being an accurate source of information so I decided to check out their claims.

Imagine my surprise when I looked at the AllSides Media Bias Chart and at the top of the LEFT category was AP.  I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck yesterday so I decided I needed to spend a bit of time checking out “AllSides” to figure out where their questionable data was coming from.  I didn’t need to look far.  At the top of the Media Bias Chart is the following statement:

“Ratings based on online, U.S. political content only – not TV, print, or Radio.  Ratings do not reflect accuracy or credibility; they reflect perspective only.”

Just out of curiosity, if the ratings don’t reflect accuracy or credibility why are they being published?

Bottom line, we live in an era where we are provided misinformation on a second-by-second  basis and it’s up to each individual to search for the truth.

A more accurate gauge of media bias, IMHO, is Ad Fontes Media which gives AP a Bias rating of Middle and a Reliability rating of Reliable, Analysis/Fact Reporting.  In addition to explaining how it came to its rating for AP, and all other media, Ad Fontes provides a listing of approximately 25 recent sample articles for each with Bias and Reliability rating scores for each.

Be sure to check out your favorite news sources on Ad Fontes Rating by Individual News Source pages.

© 2025 Patricia L Johnson