How we rate every source.
Our methodology is public because trust requires transparency. Here's exactly how bias, factuality, and ownership ratings work.
Bias Ratings
Every news source in TrueFrame receives a bias rating on a 5-point scale. This rating reflects the source's overall editorial perspective as expressed through story selection, framing, headline language, and sourcing patterns.
Left
Consistently frames stories from progressive/liberal perspective. Prioritizes social justice, government intervention, and institutional critique of conservative positions.
Lean Left
Generally frames stories with a moderate liberal perspective. May present both sides but editorial choices favor progressive framing.
Center
Attempts balanced coverage. Presents multiple perspectives without consistent editorial lean. May still have blind spots but doesn't systematically favor left or right framing.
Lean Right
Generally frames stories with a moderate conservative perspective. May present both sides but editorial choices favor conservative framing.
Right
Consistently frames stories from conservative perspective. Prioritizes free market, traditional values, and institutional critique of progressive positions.
Bias ≠ inaccuracy. A source can be strongly Left or Right and still be highly factual. Bias describes the editorial lens, not the truthfulness. The most biased sources in our database include some of the most factually rigorous. Bias and factuality are independent axes.
How we determine bias
Our AI rates sources by analyzing:
- Story selection patterns — what they choose to cover and ignore
- Headline framing — word choice, emphasis, emotional tone
- Source attribution — which experts and officials are quoted
- Contextual framing — what background is included or omitted
- Editorial pattern over time — not any single article
Each source is rated by our AI engine using a structured prompt with explicit criteria. The prompt instructs the model to evaluate based on U.S. political spectrum conventions.
Confidence score
Each bias rating includes a confidence score (0-1). Sources with extensive public track records receive higher confidence. New or niche sources may have lower confidence until more data accumulates.
Factuality Ratings
Very High
Consistently publishes well-sourced, evidence-based reporting. Corrections issued promptly. Strong editorial standards.
High
Generally accurate with occasional minor errors. Sources claims and provides context.
Mixed
Publishes a mix of factual reporting and opinion/editorial that may not be clearly distinguished. Some unsourced claims.
Low
Frequently publishes misleading, out-of-context, or poorly sourced content. May mix news with editorial without clear labeling.
Very Low
Regularly publishes false, fabricated, or deliberately misleading content. Known for conspiracy theories or propaganda.
How we determine factuality
- Source attribution — does the outlet cite primary sources?
- Correction policy — does it issue corrections when wrong?
- Editorial separation — is news clearly separated from opinion?
- Historical accuracy — fact-check record from third-party checkers
- Transparency — does the outlet disclose ownership, funding, methodology?
Who Owns the News
Media ownership affects editorial independence. A source owned by a hedge fund faces different incentive structures than an independent nonprofit. We don't claim ownership determines bias, but we believe you should know who's behind the byline.
Conglomerate
Owned by a large media or non-media corporation (e.g., Disney, News Corp, Warner Bros Discovery).
Private Equity
Owned by a private equity firm or hedge fund. May face pressure for profit optimization that affects editorial resources.
Family / Individual
Owned by an individual or family (e.g., Jeff Bezos / Washington Post, Rupert Murdoch / Fox News).
Government
State-funded or state-controlled media. Editorial independence varies significantly (BBC vs. RT).
Independent / Nonprofit
Independently owned, often nonprofit or reader-funded. May have mission-driven editorial focus.
Other / Unknown
Ownership structure is unclear, complex, or doesn't fit the above categories.
How the AI Works
Source Added
AI Analysis
Agentic AI
Bias Rating
5-point scale
Factuality
5-tier
Ownership
6 categories
Confidence
0-1 score
Rationale
Text explanation
We use our proprietary AI engine with a structured prompt to analyze each source. The engine receives the source's name, known information, and instructions to rate on our defined scales. Each rating includes a text rationale explaining the reasoning.
We chose AI-assisted rating over purely manual rating because:
- We rate 10,000+ sources. Manual rating at this scale is impractical.
- AI provides consistent application of the same criteria across all sources.
- Every rating includes a written rationale that can be audited.
We chose this over pure crowdsourcing because:
- Crowdsourced ratings reflect the crowd's biases, not the source's.
- Consistency degrades as the crowd grows.
- Rationales are more useful than aggregate scores.
How Stories Are Grouped
Article Ingested
Title Embedding
text-embedding-3-small
Similarity Check
Cosine similarity
≥ 0.82
Merge into existing story
< 0.82
Create new story
When a new article arrives, we compute a vector embedding of its title using our AI embedding model. We compare this embedding against all stories from the past 72 hours using cosine similarity.
If the similarity exceeds 0.82, the article joins an existing story cluster. If not, it becomes a new story. This threshold was chosen to balance precision (don't merge unrelated articles) with recall (don't create duplicate story clusters for the same event).
Once a story has 5 or more articles, we generate an AI summary and per-bias summaries that describe how different sides are covering the event.
What we get wrong
Known Limitations
No rating system is perfect. Here's where ours has known limitations:
AI Ratings Are Not Ground Truth
Our bias and factuality ratings are AI-generated assessments, not independently verified verdicts. They reflect the model's analysis based on its training data and our prompt instructions. Different models or different prompts would produce somewhat different ratings. We publish rationales so you can evaluate whether you agree.
U.S.-Centric Spectrum
Our 5-point bias scale is calibrated to the U.S. political spectrum. Sources from other countries may not map cleanly. A “centrist” outlet in the UK or France may register as “Lean Left” on a U.S.-calibrated scale. We plan to add region-specific calibration in a future update.
Source-Level, Not Article-Level
We rate sources as a whole, not individual articles. A “Lean Left” outlet can publish a conservative-leaning op-ed. Our rating reflects the editorial pattern, not every piece of content.
Clustering Imperfection
Our 0.82 cosine similarity threshold works well for major news events but may over-merge loosely related stories or under-merge stories with different headline framing. We continuously monitor and adjust.
Coverage Gaps
We aggregate from 10,000+ sources but that doesn't mean comprehensive coverage. Non-English sources, paywalled content, and very small outlets may be underrepresented.
Your ratings, your feed
We know our AI ratings won't match your assessment for every source. That's by design. On any source's profile page, you can set your own bias rating. Your override affects only your experience:
- Your My News Bias dashboard uses your overrides
- Your Blindspot feed uses your overrides
- Other users are never affected by your changes
We believe this is the right approach: provide a baseline assessment with transparent methodology, then let you customize based on your own informed judgment.
Questions about our methodology?