This American Life Bias and Reliability

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Compare the scores of This American Life to other sources on our free Interactive Media Bias Chart. Click Here!

Bias: Skews Left

Reliability: Reliable, Analysis/Fact Reporting

Overall Score

The following are the overall bias and reliability scores for This American Life according to our Ad Fontes Media ratings methodology.

Reliability: 40.20

Bias: -9.17

This American Life is a weekly hourlong radio program and podcast that reports journalism told in stories. The show, which launched in 1995, airs on more than 500 public radio stations in the U.S. The program, hosted by Ira Glass, has won several Peabody Awards and the first Pulitzer Prize awarded to a radio show or podcast. “This American Life” is produced in conjunction with WBEZ Chicago.

Panels of analysts from Ad Fontes Media regularly review representative sample content to rate it for reliability and bias. Each panel of analysts comprises one left-leaning, one right-leaning, and one center-leaning analyst.

The team considers a variety of factors when rating content. To determine its reliability score, we consider the content’s veracity, expression, its title/headline, and graphics. We add each of these scores to the chart on a weighted scale, with the average of those creating the sample content’s overall reliability score.

To determine sample content’s bias score, we consider its language, its political position, and how it compares to other reporting or analysis from other sources on the same topic. We add each of these scores to the chart on a weighted scale, with the average of those creating the content’s overall bias score.

The bias rating, demonstrated on the Media Bias Chart®️ on the horizontal axis, ranges from most extreme left to middle to most extreme right. The reliability rating, demonstrated on the chart’s vertical axis, rates sources on a scale from original fact reporting to analysis, opinion, propaganda and inaccurate/fabricated information.

Reliability scores for articles and shows are on a scale of 0-64. Scores above 40 are generally good; scores below 24 are generally problematic. Scores between 24-40 indicate a range of possibilities, with some sources falling there because they are heavy in opinion and analysis, and some because they have a high variation in reliability between articles.

Bias scores for articles and shows are on a scale of -42 to +42, with higher negative scores being more left, higher positive scores being more right, and scores closer to zero being minimally biased, equally balanced, or exhibiting a centrist bias.

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