Ad Fontes Media analysts explain how they arrive at bias and reliability ratings for last week’s Topic of the Week.

Each week, Ad Fontes Media chooses a widely covered trending news topic to share insight into how our analysts rank news coverage for the Media Bias Chart®. This week we looked at coverage of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to place floating buoys and razor wire to deter migrants from illegally crossing the Rio Grande River between Mexico and the United States.

To do this, we select six articles reporting on the same story from different outlets to show how each treated the subject differently. Once we choose a set of articles, pods of analysts with diverse political perspectives (one right-leaning, one center, and one left-leaning) read each article and use Ad Fontes Media’s content analysis methodology to determine its bias and reliability. These ratings inform the articles’ placement on that week’s special Media Bias Chart.

One challenge the analysts faced this week was a Texas state trooper’s allegation, emailed to news outlets, of incidents of mistreatment of migrants and injuries they sustained while encountering the countermeasures. A spokesman for Gov. Abbott denied any order that would “compromise the lives of those attempting to cross the border illegally,” and said that the trooper’s claims are under internal investigation, according to the Texas Department of Safety

The articles that our analysts rated as having middle or balanced coverage of the issue (between the -6 and +6 range on the Media Bias Chart) include coverage from the Associated Press, Axios, Fox News, and USA Today.

The articles that our analysts found to be more biased came from MSNBC and the Washington Examiner. With a rating of -15, the article from MSNBC is rated as having a strong left-leaning bias. The article from the Washington Examiner was given a rating of +7, which indicates it skews to the right.

MSNBC’s article titled “Texas’ plan to make crossing the Rio Grande more dangerous is inhumane” presents an opinion that is critical of the Republican governor’s plan. The analysts identified the article as presenting strong advocacy for immigration, which also included some criticisms of President Biden’s immigration policy. Our analysts found that although the story presents facts as well as analysis, it contained enough opinion to lower its reliability score: minus 15 points, indicating a strong left-leaning bias, and 33 points for reliability, which places it in the opinion/analysis category.

The Washington Examiner story, titled “Beto O’Rourke tells Biden to rein in Abbott or ‘he will find new ways to hurt and kill’ immigrants,” included a video that our analysts found to express strong criticism of the Biden administration’s border policies from a right-leaning bias. Our analysts determined the text of the article included plenty of factual statements with some analysis. The verdict? Plus 7 points for bias, which puts it in the “skews right” category, and 43 for reliability, placing it in a mix of fact reporting and analysis category.

As usual, we divide our rated stories into two packages for educators: a Starter package, for a less experienced or younger audience, and an Advanced package, for a more experienced audience.

If you’re interested in learning more about how we rate the news or our resources for educators, check out our website.

Also be sure to check in next week for the next Topic of the Week!

Sara Webb is a cybersecurity consultant and former high school librarian from Philadelphia, PA. She holds an M.S. in Informatics and an M. Ed in School Library and Information Technology, and has been a media literacy educator for over a decade. Sara started with Ad Fontes Media in July 2020 as a Media Analyst, and she currently continues in that role and as in-house Media Literacy Specialist. When not engrossed in media literacy projects, Sara can be found at the barn with her ex-racehorse Homer, or training her corgis for dog agility competitions.