A preliminary U.S. assessment found that the United States is “likely” responsible for the bombing of a girls school in Iran that killed 168 people, most of them children, on Feb. 28. Our analysts rated four articles and two videos about the development in our Topic of the Week.

CBS News gives the basics about the report in an article on its website. It includes information from various sources about the details of the bombing, descriptions of the attack, and how officials determined that the U.S., and not Israel or Iran, conducted the strike. Analysts found the reporting to be “simple fact reporting” with a “middle/balanced” bias.

An article from the BBC received almost identical bias and reliability scores, although it took a different angle. It focuses on the response from U.S. Senate Democrats, who wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanding answers about the deadly strike. It details the contents of the letter and describes evidence that verifies that the U.S. conducted the strike. Analysts found this article to be a “mix of fact reporting and analysis” with a “middle/balanced” bias.

In a video from the MS NOW (formerly MSNBC) program “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell,” the host says the Trump administration will lie about anything, and they have lied about everything related to the war with Iran. O’Donnell repeats many comments from Trump that he says are lies, including Trump’s initial allegation that Iran bombed the school, and then his later response, “I don’t know about it,” when asked about the report that places responsibility for the bombing on the U.S. O’Donnell compares Trump’s leadership with President Harry Truman before declaring that Trump “disgraces the American presidency.” Analysts found the video to be “opinion” with a “strong left” bias.

An article from Common Dreams was also found to be “opinion.” Like O’Donnell, the article focuses on Trump’s “lies,” beginning with the headline, “Preliminary Pentagon Findings Betray Trump’s Outrageous Lies About Iranian School Massacre.” The article quotes several people and social media posts that criticize Trump, Hegseth and U.S. military actions, including one that says “Hegseth should be potentially charged and prosecuted for war crimes.” The article repeatedly calls the bombing a “massacre,” and it quotes only those critical of the U.S. actions, leading analysts to give it a bias rating of “hyper-partisan left.”

The lowest-rated coverage from our content set came from a video on the Anthony Brian Logan YouTube channel and an article published by PJ Media. In the video, the host asks questions about the military strike and speculates that Iran “placed civilians in harm’s way on purpose” by adding a school on the grounds of a military installation. He accuses the Iranian government of killing thousands of its own people and says we shouldn’t focus only on those killed in the school strike and “ignore the at-minimum 36,500 killed by the Iranian regime.” “They all matter,” Logan says. Analysts found the video to be “unfair persuasion” with a “strong right” bias.

The PJ Media article blames “the media” for “taking Iran’s word on the school strike.” “A willingness to repeat an adversary’s claims without verified evidence raises serious questions about how modern conflicts are reported,” the article says. The article accuses “Western media” of “amplifying claims without hesitation,” handing Iran “a powerful propaganda victory.” Analysts found that this article misrepresents reporting by other media outlets, placing it in the “unfair persuasion” category of reliability and in the “hyper-partisan right” category of bias.

If you’d like to follow along on our weekly Topic of the Week exercise, you can do so by visiting our website. New Topics of the Week are posted each Monday. Read the articles and watch the videos yourself, then come back on Wednesday to compare your scores with those of our analysts. Learn more here.

Beth Heldebrandt is Director of Communications at Ad Fontes Media. She has more than 35 years of experience in the fields of journalism and public relations, and was an adjunct instructor of journalism for 17 years at Eastern Illinois University. Beth has a B.A. in journalism from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and an M.A. in English from Eastern Illinois University. She’s a mom and grandma, and enjoys traveling, puzzles and reading.