Media bias rating organizations do not agree on the Associated Press, and each uses a different method to reach its label. Some place the wire service at or near the center, and some place it slightly left of center. The most accurate answer is that the classification depends entirely on who is doing the classifying.
What the Associated Press is
The AP is a nonprofit news cooperative founded in 1846, owned by the member news organizations that use its reporting. It sells wire copy, photography, and video to outlets across the political spectrum, and those outlets then run, trim, or rewrite it under their own mastheads.
That business model is worth understanding before reading any rating. A wire service that serves customers from every direction has a commercial reason to keep copy plain, and it also means AP text frequently appears inside outlets that raters classify very differently from the AP itself.
How the main raters differ
The three organizations people cite most often are built on genuinely different foundations. None of them is measuring quite the same thing, which is why their conclusions diverge.
| Organization | How it reaches a rating | What its scale looks like |
|---|---|---|
| AllSides | Blind bias surveys of readers, editorial review, and third party input | A five point left to right scale |
| Ad Fontes Media | Article by article scoring by analysts from multiple political perspectives | A two axis chart plotting bias against reliability |
| Media Bias Fact Check | Review by its own editorial team against published criteria | A bias label plus a separate factual reporting grade |
Each group publishes its current rating on its own site, and each updates ratings periodically. Because they revise, any figure quoted in an article can be out of date. Check the source directly before you rely on a label.
Reading a bias rating without being misled
- Check what was rated. A rating for news reporting is not a rating for opinion columns, and many outlets carry both.
- Check the date. Ratings are revised, and an old screenshot circulates long after the rating changed.
- Check the scale. A center label on a five point scale and a middle position on a numeric chart are not the same measurement.
- Check the method. Reader surveys, analyst scoring, and staff review answer different questions.
How to judge the copy for yourself
Rating sites are a starting point, not a verdict. The more useful exercise is reading the wire copy directly at the AP site and then comparing it to how a story appeared in outlets you already read. The differences between the two versions tell you something concrete about both.
Pay attention to specific, checkable things. Does the headline match what the article supports? Are quotes from more than one side, and are they given similar space? Is the sourcing named or anonymous? Does the story separate what happened from what someone claims happened? Those questions produce better information than any single label, and they work on every outlet you read.
