The Problem

As a child of the 1970s, I personally grew up with just four channels on our television: ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS. And we lived so far out in a rural area that PBS rarely came in, so we really just had three main sources of news and information beaming into our home—in the rare instances the television was even turned on.

However, partly as a result of multimedia deregulation in our country, we've seen an absolutely massive proliferation of media sources in the decades since the 1980s. This leaves each channel, each source, desperate to compete in an increasingly crowded field of media sources vying for Americans' attention. To grab more viewers, sources are increasingly tempted to resort to clickbait and various news organizations resort to more and more extreme programs and views.

This has left us in a swirl of misinformation and disinformation, with liberal sources accusing more conservative sources of being "fake news" and conservative sources accusing more liberal or progressive sources of being "fake news." You've probably heard people rail against mainstream media as "too liberal" (filled with progressive or radical journalists out to dupe America with their devious covert agenda), and just as many people rail against mainstream media as "too conservative" (filled with conservative journalists out to dupe America with their devious covert agenda).

The Solution

The question then becomes how can young smart college students, who just want the facts—from politically unbiased sources that use very reliable sources—know which media sources are not fake news?


You can learn about one solid solution, the Ad Fontes Media Chart, either in this media bias chart intro video that I've created or simply by reading the following. Sometimes students tell me they find the chart a little hard to decipher, so this media bias chart intro video might help.
 

A majority of scholars across the nation turn to the Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart. I ask that you review this website before completing the Just the Facts, Ma'am quiz. Here's how it is structured:


When doing research for your college assignments, you can double check your sources here before you quote them to make sure you're not citing unreliable or biased information. Or you can come here to identify the best sources and only research within those. E.g., the United Press International (UPI), Associated Press (AP), and Reuters are perennially at the top center of the chart—they are considered the cream of the crop—so your google search could start with reuters +_________ (fill in your topic) to get unbiased facts on that topic.

On the Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart, on the left, below where it says "Select specific news sources," you can enter the name of any newspaper or magazine that you're considering citing to see where it falls on the chart. Or you can use the sliders below that to discover the most unbiased and reliable sources.


Zoom in on the chart, and you'll see UPI, AP, and Reuters at the top center, along with Detroit Free Press, The Denver Post, and other sources. You might be interested to know that of the "big three" TV stations that I grew up with, CBS Local is considered the most reliable and unbiased. 

Here's the bottom line: