Ad Fontes Media has released its most recent Media Bias Chart® for podcasts. The July chart features 62 podcasts, eight of them for the first time.

We get a lot of questions about why certain podcasts are placed on the chart on the left or the right, near the top or near the bottom. I encourage you to read about our rating process on the website. But let’s briefly explore it.

Our methodology is based in content analysis. That means our analysts (one right leaning politically, one left leaning and one center) listen to actual podcast episodes and rate them on bias and reliability. 

It’s important to remember that it’s not just the hosts providing content in most podcasts. Many times, guests are brought in for interviews and to provide their opinions on the topic. What these guests say are part of the content, and therefore, our analysts consider their words when determining scores for reliability and bias.

You may know the backgrounds and personal opinions of podcast hosts like Bill Maher, Joe Rogan and Tim Pool, and feel that the placement of their shows on the Media Bias Chart® is wrong. But it’s not the hosts themselves that are being rated. Our analysts rate all content included in that particular episode, and a weighted average of all rated episodes determines that podcast’s placement on the chart.

Our analyst team has now listened to almost 2,900 episodes from 730 podcasts to help savvy media consumers choose reliable sources of audio news. It’s impossible to include all 730 rated shows in one image, so a sample of 62 podcasts are featured on this month’s static media bias chart (see the list of 62 here). 

Eight podcasts are included on the chart this month for the first time:

• Aggressive Progressive
• All In Podcast (All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg)
• Just Listen to Yourself with Kira Davis
• NYT: Matter of Opinion
• Pekingology
• The Dershow
• The Mel K Show
• Today, Explained

If your favorite podcasts aren’t on the July chart, you can still search for them using the Interactive Media Bias Chart® on our website, as well as our Media Bias Chart® app, available for iPhone and Android. Daily search limits apply.

When you add in our web/print and TV/video ratings, our analysts have fully rated over 3,900 sources, with commercial data on over 11,000 sources. Become a subscriber today to have additional access to our data set! Our new News Nerd Pro subscription allows you to search all 3,900 sources with no limits! In addition, you’ll have the ability to filter the search results for things like ownership, content keywords, and more.

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