On Nov. 12, President Trump signed a bill to reopen the federal government and end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. For weeks, Democrats and Republicans have blamed each other for the shutdown, which lasted 43 days. Our analysts rated media coverage about the shutdown and the legislation that ultimately ended it in our Topic of the Week.

Reporting from UPI earned the highest reliability and lowest bias scores from our content set this week. The UPI article shares the facts about how the agreement was reached, what’s included in the bill, what issues led to the disagreement between Republicans and Democrats on funding the government, and how the shutdown affected federal employees and services. Analysts found the article to be “thorough fact reporting” with a “middle/balanced” bias.

Scoring only slightly lower for reliability was an article from the NPR website. The reporting analyzes what is and isn’t in the funding bill and looks at the dynamics between the Republican and Democratic parties in reaching the agreement. The article was rated as a “mix of fact reporting and analysis” with a “middle/balanced” bias.

A video from the Fox News show “America’s Newsroom with Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino” focuses on how the Democratic party will be affected by the funding agreement, which passed only after a handful of Democratic senators voted with Republicans. Fox News contributor Mary Catharine Ham comments on the “intra-party fight” among Democrats, who did not achieve their goal of continuing health care subsidies as part of the funding bill. Ham, who calls it “a dumb shutdown that achieved nothing,” speculates about whether Sen. Chuck Schumer will be forced out of his leadership position. Analysts noted the reporting focuses on strife within the Democratic party but includes only opinions from those on the right. They found the video to be “analysis” with a “strong right” bias.

A video from the MS NOW (formerly MSNBC) channel’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” and an article from The American Prospect received similar scores of “opinion” with a “hyper-partisan left” bias. In the video, Maddow blames Democrats for choosing to “give up” during the “worst week of Donald Trump’s presidency” even though they were “at the height of their power under Trump so far” after large wins during the recent midterm elections. “Why cave now?” Maddow asks as she begins an interview with Sen. Bernie Sanders, who calls the passage of the government funding bill a “terrible vote” and says Democratic leadership is “way out of touch with where Democrats in general are, where many independents are, where the grassroots of America are.”

The article from The American Prospect takes a different view, arguing that the government shutdown will hurt Republicans more than the Democrats. This opinion is clear in the subhead: “Trump and his party’s zeal to strip health coverage and food from 60 million Americans will matter more in 2026 than some Democrats caving.” The author, Harold Myerson, argues that cuts to Medicaid don’t matter to Trump; all that matters is the Affordable Care Act because it’s connected to President Obama. “That Trump used the shutdown to double down on the cruelty of his policies by cutting off food stamps only further demonstrated his, at best, indifference to such matters when weighed against his urge to compel his Democratic adversaries to give up and Obama to lose his signal achievement,” he writes. “…getting revenge on Obama was all that really mattered.”

The lowest-rated reporting from our content set came from an article by Twitchy. The article says, “The Democrat Party held the American people hostage for 43 days … They have nothing to show for it but the battered and disrupted lives of the American people.” The article blames the shutdown entirely on the Democrats and Sen. Chuck Schumer, stating “The Schumer Shutdown was never about principle — just inflicting pain for political points.” The reporting includes several posts from social media and concludes with “Democrats’ lust for power and control is still there. We must vote as if our lives depend on it, because they do.” Analysts rated the reporting as “selective or incomplete/unfair persuasion” with a “hyper-partisan right” bias.

Want to see if you agree with our analysts? New Topics of the Week are posted on the website each Monday. Analyst scores are published on Wednesday. Learn more here.