Alarmed by the unhealthy state of the media ecosystem, Vanessa used her expertise in content analysis to create the original Media Bias Chart in 2016. Then in 2018, she founded Ad Fontes Media to fulfill the need revealed by the popularity of the chart–namely, to meet the demand for a map to help people navigate the complex media landscape, as well as for comprehensive content analysis of media sources themselves. Today, Ad Fontes Media uses a systematic approach to content analysis in which a team of politically-balanced professional analysts examine and categorize news content creating data that is useful to news consumers, educators, marketers, and even publishers themselves. In 2023, Vanessa led the development of ML/AI news ratings using Ad Fontes Media’s large dataset of human-scored news ratings.

Ad Fontes offers products and services for educational institutions and for individuals, including training on the company’s content analysis methodology, which Vanessa frequently conducts herself. The company offers its data throughout the advertising, marketing, and news publishing ecosystem.