Is Raw Story Reliable?

Raw Story began in 2004 as an alternative news source covering the stories “ignored” by other outlets. Today, it is both widely shared and widely ridiculed. For example, a 2018 study by the Oxford Internet Institute labeled the site as one of the “Top 30 Junk News Sources.” Yet, a Harvard study found that it was the 9th most shared source on Twitter among supporters of Hillary Clinton in the run-up to the 2016 election. So as a site with huge reach, but also huge questions about its content, is Raw Story a reliable news source?

How Does The Factual Rate News Sources? 

The Factual analyzes more than 10,000 news stories every day to help readers find the most informative, least-biased articles. Our news-rating algorithm scores each article along four metrics: (1) cited sources and quotes, (2) publication history, (3) writing tone, and (4) author expertise. These scores combine in a weighted average we call a Factual Grade, which ranges from 0–100%. (See our How It Works page to learn more about our algorithm.)

For this study, we analyzed ~1,000 articles each from 240 news sources. The average Factual Grade for the entire dataset was 62.5%. Based on these averages, we can compare the performance of news sites across the media ecosystem. The entire dataset can be explored in greater detail here.

How Factual Is Raw Story?

Raw Story scored an average Factual Grade of 57.8%, placing it in the 22nd percentile of our dataset. These low scores are driven by Raw Story’s tendency to use inflammatory, emotionally laden language, typical of its click-bait format. Articles also generally lack diverse or extensive evidence, meaning they frequently only link to a handful of sources or link only to other Raw Story articles.

Like any news source, scores for articles from Raw Story varied widely based on factors like author expertise and cited evidence. For example, some scored above 70%, while others scored below 50%.

How Opinionated Is Raw Story?

One of the metrics The Factual uses is the Writing Tone, which measures how opinionated the writing is in an article. For this metric, the algorithm looks for signs of subjective commentary (e.g., first person pronouns and unnecessary adverbs), as well as the emotional nature of selected words, and sees how prevalent they are for a given length of text. More neutral text receives higher ratings, with “0” being the most opinionated and “1” being the most neutral.

Raw Story had an average Writing Tone score of 0.51, placing it in the 34th percentile in our dataset for this metric. This suggests that articles from the site are often highly opinionated in their writing tone. This can be seen through headlines such as “A third of America is lost to hate: Is it time to move on” and “Ron DeSantis just had a very bad day.”

What Is Raw Story’s Political Bias?

The Factual classifies news sites by political bias as either Left, Moderate Left, Center, Moderate Right, or Right. This classification comes from third-party assessments from media bias organizations such as AllSides and Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC). Based on this data, The Factual assigns Raw Story a “Left” bias. 

MBFC classifies Raw Story as “Left,” highlighting the site’s tendency to publish articles favoring liberal causes and its left-leaning story selection. Other issues include a mixed record for factual reporting due to “​​half-true, false, and unproven claims, as well as the promotion of mild pseudoscience misinformation.”

AllSides has yet to conduct a full analysis of Raw Story’s political bias but does assign the site a “Left” bias rating. This is supported by 1,965 ratings from the AllSides community. This rating is likely uncontroversial because Raw Story labels itself as a progressive news source.

Who Owns Raw Story?

John K. Byrne, an American publisher and writer, launched Raw Story in 2004 as a liberal version of the Drudge Report. In the early years of its operation, Byrne used the publication to expose anti-gay politicians who were themselves closeted gays. Byrne served as the chief editor until 2010, but remains the CEO. Today, Byrne also owns AlterNet, a similarly styled progressive online news aggregator. 

Why Does It Matter?

News articles always have some bias because all authors have some frame of reference within which they describe a story. Political bias ratings are helpful in understanding this framing. However, it can be more beneficial to know how factual an article is based on quantifiable metrics that can be seen across the media ecosystem, such as cited evidence, author expertise, and writing tone. This is what The Factual ascertains. 

Reading several, highly rated articles from across the political spectrum helps counter the bias of any news source or story. To have the day’s most factual news stories delivered to your inbox every morning, subscribe to our daily newsletter.

This article was updated on September 22, 2022 to reflect new data.