Did Lockdowns Work? Where the Left and Right Agree and Disagree

As much as Covid-19 has been a health pandemic, it has also been a pandemic of disagreement, particularly when it comes to lockdowns, in terms of both their effectiveness at stopping the spread of the virus and their relative costs for society. There is a fairly consistent divide in how the left and right view …

Women Journalists Are the Most Credible Voices on Covid-19

By Phillip Meylan and Lucina Di Meco On more than one occasion, The Factual has uncovered data on the U.S. media ecosystem that suggests that women journalists make up a disproportionately high number of the most credible journalists. An analysis back in April found that 8 of the top 10 journalists covering Covid-19 were women, …

Protest or Riot: How Headlines Skew Perspectives

Since the killing of George Floyd on May 25 by police in Minneapolis, the country has erupted in waves of protest and police action. News coverage has followed every step, but where you get your news likely has an impact on how you interpret events. Even the subtlest of word choices by journalists can be …

When It Comes to Getting Credible Coronavirus News, Political Bias Matters

Fox News and CNN are commonly framed as opposing forces in the battle for truth, representing opposed Republican and Democratic sides. However, our recent investigation of Covid-19 news articles since January 1 (71,260 articles from 206 news outlets) shows that the vast majority of articles from either source are poorly researched, highly opinionated, or otherwise …

The Top-Rated Media Outlets on COVID-19

In the first 72 days of 2020 (up through March 12, the day of our first such review), roughly 11,000 articles were published about COVID-19 in the entire U.S. media ecosystem. By the end of March (19 days later), that number nearly quadrupled to over 41,000, with a daily output that routinely tops 1,500 articles. …