There’s been a lot of debate recently about the relationship between influential media personalities and the Republican and Democratic parties. Some believe the parties should break ties with news influencers considered extreme, while others think it’s important to embrace all voices in order to expand their political support, especially among younger voters.

This week, the Washington Post published an article about far-right political commentator Nick Fuentes. Fuentes has been removed from most social media platforms for what the Post describes as “extreme bigotry,” but he still regularly livestreams videos on Rumble. And it’s lucrative; according to the Post, his fans have sent him hundreds of thousands of dollars to support his work.

Last week, far-left streamer Hasan Piker was in the news after he spoke at Yale University. According to an article from Fox News, Piker, who has millions of followers, has been criticized for making antisemitic and anti-American comments. To see more recent coverage about Piker, take a look at this week’s Advanced Topic of the Week. Our analysts will rate the Fox News article and three others, as well as two videos, as part of our weekly exercise into how different media outlets report on the same news story.

The popularity of Fuentes and Piker has led to dissent within the Republican and Democratic parties as both prepare for midterm elections later this year. We’ve rated content from both Fuentes and Piker (one as a podcast and one as a video program), and here’s where they fall on the Media Bias Chart®. The HasanAbi YouTube channel appears in the bottom left. The America First with Nicholas J. Fuentes podcast is in the bottom right.

Meanwhile, President Trump recently insulted conservative media personalities who have criticized him because of the war in Iran: Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Alex Jones. And his relationship with popular podcaster Joe Rogan was in the news this week when Rogan, who has been critical of Trump in the past, joined him at the White House as he signed an executive order to speed up research into psychedelic drugs to treat veterans.

All of this is a reminder of how influential certain media personalities can be. Not only do they report the news and comment on it, but they also shape our understanding of what’s going on in the world, they influence how we vote, and they have the attention of our political leaders. Here at Ad Fontes Media, we’ll continue to keep an eye on these news influencers as part of our daily work of analyzing the complex media landscape.

Today we’re releasing the April edition of the Podcast/Audio Media Bias Chart®, which includes 47 podcasts rated by our team for bias and reliability. As always, sources in the green box of the chart have been found by our team to consistently provide minimally biased, fact-based information. 

Ten podcasts fall within the green box on the April Media Bias Chart®: 

• Babbage from The Economist
• CBC News: At Issue
• Fox News Rundown
• FT News Briefing
• NPR News Now
• NYT: Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
• Rachel Maddow Presents: Burn Order
• Rachman Review
• Start Here
• The McCarthy Report

More podcasts fall within the green box, and we’ll feature those on future charts.

Eight podcasts are included on the chart this month for the first time (four of these fall within the green box):

• Babbage from The Economist
• CBC News: At Issue
• Cleanup on Aisle 45 with AG and Andrew Torrez
• NPR: Code Switch
• NYT: Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
• Rachman Review
• The Glenn Beck Podcast
• The Powers That Be with Peter Hamby

Our team started rating podcasts in 2023, and since then, we’ve rated more than 3,680 episodes of 980 podcasts (we’ve fully rated 885 of them). We choose only a few dozen podcasts to include on each month’s static Media Bias Chart because it’s impossible to show all of them in a single image. A list of the 47 sources on this chart can be found here.

In addition, to make the logos as large and readable as possible, we’ve magnified a portion of the chart and removed the edges that contain no sources. 

If you’re looking for information about a podcast that’s not on the April chart, you can search for it on our free mobile app for Apple and Android. You also can access the free version of the interactive chart on the website, which allows access to data on 250 of our top sources. Daily search limits apply.

To get expanded access, you’ll need a News Newbie or News Nerd subscription. Our subscribers can search all sources our team has fully rated (websites, podcasts and TV/video), with other added benefits!

To keep up on all our work, join our email list! We’ll send you news about the latest chart releases, Topic of the Week analyses, and more.