Why we place each source where we do

Reads everything through class and power.

• Workers World

  Workers World is the paper of a Marxist-Leninist party, and it says so. It reads every event through the struggle between the class that owns and the class that works, and treats the US state and military as instruments of the owning class. It earns the far-left lens on its stated politics, with no read of its tone required.

• People's World

  People's World grew out of the American communist press and still reports from an explicitly Marxist, labor-first standpoint. Class and capital are the organizing categories of its coverage, which places it on the revolutionary left rather than the reform-minded left.

• Liberation News

  Liberation News is published by a socialist party and frames its journalism as an arm of the movement it serves. Its anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist starting point is stated openly, which is the clearest possible basis for the far-left placement.

• CounterPunch

  CounterPunch is a radical-left magazine that prizes dissent from both parties and reads American power through a sharply anti-imperialist lens. It sits at the far-left edge of our spectrum because its critique targets the system itself, whoever holds office.

• World Socialist Web Site

  Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International, the WSWS writes from an orthodox Trotskyist position and names it plainly. Its coverage is organized around international class struggle, which is the far-left lens in its most explicit form.

• Monthly Review

  Monthly Review is an independent socialist magazine founded in 1949, in the Marxist political-economy tradition of Paul Sweezy and Harry Magdoff. It reads capitalism as a global system of monopoly and imperialism and treats that analysis, not party loyalty, as its starting point, which places it on the far left as a matter of stated method.

• Counterfire

  Counterfire is a British revolutionary-socialist organization, and its news site says so. It writes from an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist position and reports movements from the inside, which earns the far-left lens on its stated politics rather than on tone.

• In Defense of Marxism

  In Defense of Marxism (marxist.com) is the site of the Revolutionary Communist International, in the Trotskyist tradition. It names its politics openly and organizes coverage around international class struggle and party-building, the clearest possible basis for the far-left placement.

• Black Agenda Report

  Black Agenda Report comes out of the Black radical tradition, billing itself as news and commentary from the black left. It joins race and class in an anti-imperialist frame and is as willing to indict the Black political establishment as the right, which sits it on the far left rather than the liberal center.

The same critique of capitalism, but through the ballot box.

• Jacobin

  Jacobin shares the Marxist diagnosis that capitalism produces exploitation, but argues for getting beyond it through elections, unions, and mass movements rather than revolution. That combination, a socialist goal pursued by democratic means, is the democratic-socialist lens, and Jacobin is its flagship US magazine.

• The Intercept

  The Intercept does adversarial, document-driven reporting on national security, surveillance, and corporate power from a left standpoint that wants to extend democracy into the economy itself, going further than the regulation liberals accept. It lands in democratic socialist rather than liberal because it treats the institutions liberals trust as subjects of investigation.

• Truthout

  Truthout is a nonprofit that publishes movement-aligned reporting and analysis on labor, climate, and civil rights from a left-of-liberal position. It wants structural change through organizing and policy, which is the democratic-socialist register rather than the revolutionary one.

• Common Dreams

  Common Dreams is a progressive nonprofit newsroom that covers politics through inequality, corporate influence, and climate, pushing for change inside the democratic system. Its consistent position to the left of the party establishment places it here rather than in the liberal mainstream.

• Novara Media

  Novara is a British left outlet built around democratic-socialist politics: it argues for public ownership and worker power through elections and unions. We analyze it for the same lens as Jacobin, applied to UK and global stories.

• Truthdig

  Truthdig publishes left commentary and investigations in the tradition of its founder Robert Scheer: anti-imperialist, labor-first, and as hard on Democratic leadership as on Republicans. It treats both parties as managers of the same donor system.

Institutions, norms, and incremental reform.

• NPR

  NPR is institutional, expertise-driven journalism that trusts courts, agencies, universities, and the professional press to improve society through good governance. That faith in institutions and incremental reform is the liberal-mainstream worldview. We place it there on coverage, and AllSides rates NPR’s news Lean Left.

• The New York Times

  The Times is the standard-bearer for the worldview of most major American newspapers: regulated capitalism, individual rights, strong institutions, and progress through expertise. Its news desk centers exactly the concerns that define the liberal-mainstream lens, which is why it sits here.

• The Washington Post

  The Post does the institutional, accountability-minded journalism that anchors the liberal mainstream, with democracy and the rule of law as recurring frames. Its starting assumptions are the lens’s assumptions, which is the basis for the placement.

• The Atlantic

  The Atlantic is an ideas magazine of the educated center-left: it defends liberal institutions and democratic norms in long-form, and treats threats to them as the story of the era. That makes it a clear liberal-mainstream voice rather than a movement-left one.

• The Guardian

  The Guardian is a center-left global paper that backs civil rights, climate action, and multilateral institutions while operating firmly within liberal democracy. Its values map onto the liberal-mainstream lens, with a sharper progressive edge than US network news.

• CNN

  Network and cable news in the US sits in the liberal mainstream by this project’s definition, and AllSides rates CNN Lean Left. Its coverage treats institutions and norms as the baseline and frames politics as their defense or erosion.

• MSNBC

  MSNBC is opinion-led cable from the left of the mainstream, openly aligned with Democratic-leaning audiences while still operating within liberal-institutional politics. AllSides rates it Left; we keep it in the liberal mainstream as the cable counterweight to Fox.

• ABC News

  Broadcast network news is liberal mainstream by this project’s definition, and AllSides rates ABC Lean Left. Its register is institutional and norm-centered rather than ideological, but its starting assumptions are the lens’s.

• Politico

  Politico reports politics as a professional inside game, prizing access, speed, and tactics. We file it liberal mainstream rather than center because AllSides rates it Lean Left: its story selection and sourcing tilt to the institutional center-left even as its register stays process-first.

• USA Today

  USA Today is a mass-market national paper written for the broadest middle-American audience. AllSides moved it from Center to Lean Left, so we file it liberal mainstream: a plain, institutional register whose assumptions sit just left of center. (Its Gannett RSS is dead, so we bridge it into the brief.)

• CBS News

  CBS News is one of the three legacy broadcast networks, and its politics desk works from the same mainstream-institutional frame as its peers: official sources first, establishment consensus as the baseline, and deviations from it treated as the story.

• NBC News

  NBC News runs the largest news division of the broadcast networks, and its political coverage works inside the mainstream-institutional frame: official sourcing, beat reporters on the parties, and analysis that takes the two-party system as the field of play.

Process over position. The view from the middle.

• Associated Press

  The AP is a wire service built to be reprinted by outlets across the spectrum, so it reports what happened with the least ideological framing of any source we analyze. That straight-news discipline, process over position, is the center lens. We lead our daily summary with wire sources like the AP for exactly this reason.

• Reuters

  Reuters is a global wire service with a house style built around neutrality for a worldwide client base. Like the AP, it sits in the center because it prioritizes the factual record over any worldview. (It lost public RSS in 2020, so we bridge it into the brief separately.)

• PBS NewsHour

  PBS NewsHour is public-broadcast news with a measured, both-sides register that treats institutional stability as the default good. We file it center rather than liberal because its posture is procedural and balance-seeking, not reform-driven.

• BBC News

  The BBC is a global public broadcaster bound by impartiality rules, and for a US reader it reads as straight international news rather than a partisan voice. That puts it in the center lens. (Its Spanish service, BBC Mundo, we analyze under Identity for its Latino-audience framing.)

• The Hill

  The Hill covers Washington as institutional management: who has the votes, what moves, what the polls say. It treats both parties as legitimate actors and conflict as something to be tracked, which is the center lens rather than a reform agenda.

• Bloomberg

  Bloomberg covers politics as a market input: its politics desk serves readers who trade on the answer, which disciplines the reporting toward what is checkable and priced. It is the access journalism of a financial wire, with the strengths and limits that model buys.

Free markets, strong institutions, the establishment right.

• National Review

  National Review is the institutional home of establishment American conservatism: free markets, constitutional principle, a hawkish foreign policy, and an explicit wariness of populist demagoguery. Buckley’s magazine ran an entire "Against Trump" issue in 2016, which is the center-right lens as we define it, the establishment right MAGA rebelled against.

• Wall Street Journal

  We file the Journal under the center-right for its distinctive voice, the editorial page: free markets, free trade, tax cuts, and a hawkish foreign policy, the establishment-right canon. Its news desk is straight and business-focused, AllSides rates the news Center and the opinion section right, and the editorial line is what marks its lens.

• The Dispatch

  The Dispatch was founded by conservatives who left movement media over Trump, to do fact-driven reporting from the old establishment right: free markets, a strong judiciary, and an internationalist foreign policy. It sits in this lens precisely because it defines itself against the populist right, which is the lens boundary in miniature.

• The Bulwark

  The Bulwark was built by veterans of the pre-Trump conservative establishment and now spends much of its energy opposing the populist right from that older position. We keep it in the center-right lens because its yardsticks are still establishment-conservative ones: institutions, alliances, markets, and constitutional restraint.

• City Journal

  City Journal is the Manhattan Institute’s magazine of urban policy and culture, arguing for markets, policing, and civic order from an empirical, institutional register. That think-tank conservatism, data and governance rather than populist grievance, is what places it in the establishment center-right.

• Washington Examiner

  The Examiner is a conservative Washington daily that covers politics at newsroom speed for a Republican-leaning audience, closer in temperament to the party establishment than to the populist media ecosystem. AllSides rates it Lean Right, and its beat-driven, insider register is why we file it here rather than with the MAGA outlets.

• The Economist

  The Economist has argued for free trade, free markets, and liberal internationalism since 1843, and says so on its own about page. That classical-liberal canon is the establishment center-right as we define it, applied globally: pro-market and pro-immigration, hawkish on rules-based order, and allergic to populism on either flank.

Liberty first, on both the economy and your private life.

• Reason

  Reason is the flagship libertarian magazine: it opposes government intervention consistently, in the economy and in private life alike. That dual stance, free markets and personal freedom together, is the libertarian lens, and Reason is its clearest standard-bearer.

• Cato Institute

  Cato is a libertarian think tank whose analysis applies one yardstick to everything: less government, more individual liberty, on social and economic questions alike. We analyze it for the libertarian lens in its policy-paper form.

• The Free Press

  The Free Press is a heterodox outlet built around free speech, open inquiry, and suspicion of institutional orthodoxy. We file it under the libertarian lens for its civil-liberties-first instinct and its resistance to both progressive and conservative pieties, though it is less doctrinaire than Reason or Cato.

• Antiwar.com

  Antiwar.com, published by the Randolph Bourne Institute, is a libertarian non-interventionist site built around one conviction: that US military intervention abroad is the core problem, whichever party runs it. That consistent anti-war, pro-civil-liberties starting point is the libertarian lens applied to foreign policy, and it is what earns the placement here over a left or paleo-right read of the same skepticism.

• Mises Institute

  The Mises Institute publishes Austrian-school economics and the hard end of libertarian thought: against central banking, against war, and against most of what the modern federal government does. It is a think tank first, so essays and analysis outnumber reported news.

Nation first. Elites distrusted.

• Breitbart

  Breitbart is a nationalist-populist outlet that helped define the movement: economic nationalism, hard immigration restriction, anti-establishment combat, and open hostility to the mainstream press. That is the MAGA lens, which is not traditional conservatism, and Breitbart is one of its anchors.

• The Daily Wire

  The Daily Wire is a populist-right media company built around culture-war commentary and opposition to progressive politics, with a large, movement-aligned audience. Its cultural conservatism plus anti-establishment posture place it on the populist right rather than the intellectual or libertarian right.

• The Federalist

  The Federalist is a combative populist-right magazine that frames cultural and election issues as existential fights against a corrupt establishment. Its disruptive, anti-elite posture is the MAGA lens, distinct from National Review’s institutional conservatism.

• Fox News

  Fox is the largest right-of-center outlet in the country, and its prime-time identity is populist and nationalist, the cable home of the MAGA movement. AllSides rates it Right. We place it here as the dominant voice of the populist right.

• One America News

  OAN is a small cable network positioned to the right of Fox, strongly pro-Trump and combative toward the mainstream press. We analyze it as a populist-right counterweight to CNN and MSNBC on the cable dial.

• Blaze Media

  Blaze Media grew out of Glenn Beck's exit from Fox News and writes for the populist right: culture-war leads, cases against federal agencies, and an opinion desk and news desk that speak in one voice.

Faith and moral order as the lens on public life.

• Christianity Today

  Christianity Today is the flagship evangelical Protestant magazine, reading public life through scripture, faith, and the church. It is the more reflective, searching end of the religious right, but its organizing frame is religious, faith and moral order as the lens, which is what defines this worldview.

• The Christian Post

  The Christian Post covers news for an evangelical audience, with abortion, religious freedom, and the perceived secularization of America as recurring frames. That scripture-first, culture-war-aware standpoint is the religious-right lens.

• CBN News

  CBN, the Christian Broadcasting Network, is populist evangelical media: pro-life, pro-Israel often for end-times reasons, and quick to read events through prophecy and faith. It is the populist, Protestant wing of the religious right, the counterweight within this lens to First Things’ intellectual Catholicism.

• First Things

  First Things is a religion-and-public-life journal, largely Catholic and ecumenical, that argues for a moral order rooted in tradition and faith. It is the intellectual, Catholic, "post-liberal" wing of the religious right, theological rather than populist, the counterpart to evangelical broadcast media like CBN.

• The American Conservative

  The American Conservative speaks for a traditionalist, often religiously grounded paleoconservatism: pro-family, communitarian, and deeply skeptical of foreign wars. We file it under the religious right as that lens’s anti-war, traditionalist wing, distinct from the hawkish evangelicals and from the free-market center-right.

The news as lived by America’s communities, and where they split.

• The Root Black American

  The Root reads the news through the question other lenses skip: how does this land on Black America? We place it in Identity because its organizing principle is a community’s lived experience, not a point on the left-right line. Within that, it sits on the progressive end of Black media.

• theGrio Black American

  theGrio is Black-audience news and politics, more centrist in register than The Root but built on the same standpoint: the news as it reaches Black America. It belongs in Identity because community, not ideology, organizes its coverage.

• Capital B Black American

  Capital B is a Black-led nonprofit newsroom doing local and national accountability reporting for Black communities. We analyze it under Identity for its community-first reporting standpoint.

• La Opinión Latino

  La Opinión is one of the largest Spanish-language US newspapers, reporting the news as it reaches Latino readers, immigration especially as lived experience rather than abstraction. That community standpoint is why it sits in Identity.

• Latino USA Latino

  Latino USA is long-form public-radio journalism told from Latino perspectives. We place it in Identity because its defining lens is how American life is experienced inside one community.

• AsAmNews Asian American

  AsAmNews covers news for and about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, centering stories of anti-Asian hate, representation, and community life. It is in Identity because it reads the news from a specific community vantage point.

• The Forward Jewish American

  The Forward is a storied Jewish-American outlet covering the news through Jewish life, history, and debate. It sits in Identity as a Jewish-American standpoint; on Israel and antisemitism it often diverges sharply from the Palestinian and Arab outlets we also read, which is exactly the divergence this lens is built to show.

• Algemeiner Jewish American

  The Algemeiner is a Jewish-American outlet on the more conservative, strongly pro-Israel end of that community’s media. We analyze it in Identity as one Jewish standpoint, deliberately alongside more progressive Jewish voices and Palestinian ones, so the community’s internal range is visible.

• Mondoweiss Palestinian / Arab American

  Mondoweiss reports on Israel and Palestine from an explicitly Palestinian-rights standpoint. We place it in Identity as a Palestinian and Arab-American vantage point, set against the Jewish-American outlets in the same lens, because the disagreement between those communities is one of the most important things the lens reveals.

• Al Jazeera Palestinian / Arab American

  Al Jazeera is a Qatar-based global broadcaster, and we analyze it specifically for the prominent Palestinian and Arab standpoint its Middle East coverage carries, which is why it sits in Identity rather than the center despite its scale. Its framing of the region is the reason for the placement.

• The Advocate LGBTQ

  The Advocate is the oldest LGBTQ news outlet in the US, reporting the news through its impact on LGBTQ people. It belongs in Identity because its coverage is organized around one community’s lived experience.

• The 19th Women / gender

  The 19th is a nonprofit newsroom reporting at the intersection of gender, politics, and policy. We analyze it in Identity for its standpoint: the news as it lands on women and LGBTQ people, an angle the ideological lenses routinely underweight.

• Indian Country Today Native American

  ICT (Indian Country Today) is the largest Native American news organization, covering tribal sovereignty, federal policy, and Indigenous life. It sits in Identity because it reports from a community vantage point that almost no other outlet centers.

• MuslimMatters Muslim American

  MuslimMatters writes for and about Muslim Americans, reading public life through that community’s experience and faith. We file it in Identity as a Muslim-American standpoint.

• Disability Scoop Disability

  Disability Scoop is the leading news source on developmental and intellectual disabilities, covering policy and services from the disability community’s standpoint. It belongs in Identity for that community-first lens.

• Washington Blade LGBTQ

  The Washington Blade is the oldest LGBTQ newspaper in the country, reporting since 1969 from Washington with a news desk aimed at queer politics and policy. It covers the federal government the way a community paper covers city hall: as the institution that decides its readers' rights.

• Rafu Shimpo Asian American

  The Rafu Shimpo has published from Los Angeles since 1903 as the Japanese American community's paper of record, through wartime incarceration and after it. Its news mixes community coverage with national stories read through Japanese American history.

The technology debate the left-right dial can’t see.

• Noahpinion Optimist / abundance

  Noah Smith writes from the optimist, abundance end of the technology debate: build more, grow faster, treat technology and energy as the route to a richer society. We place him in Tech and AI on the pro-growth axis, the counterweight to the critics in the same lens.

• Marcus on AI AI-safety skeptic

  Gary Marcus is a leading skeptic of current AI, arguing that large models are overhyped and that the risks are being mismanaged. He sits in Tech and AI on the critical, safety-skeptic axis, opposite the accelerationists, which is the kind of internal split this lens exists to show.

• 404 Media Critical / anti-hype

  404 Media is a journalist-owned outlet doing hard-nosed reporting on how technology actually affects people: surveillance, platforms, labor, and AI’s downsides. We analyze it on the critical, anti-hype axis of the technology debate.

• Ed Zitron Critical / anti-hype

  Ed Zitron is one of the loudest critics of the tech industry and the AI boom, arguing much of it is a bubble built on hype. He anchors the pessimist, anti-hype end of the Tech and AI lens, deliberately read against the optimists in the same lens.

• Wired Tech press

  Wired is mainstream technology journalism that treats tech and AI as the first-order story of the age. We place it in Tech and AI as a tech-press voice that runs both the optimistic and critical sides of the debate rather than sitting at one pole.

• The Verge Tech press

  The Verge covers technology, platforms, and policy for a broad audience, treating the technology debate as central political terrain. It sits in Tech and AI as mainstream tech press, increasingly sharp on platform power and AI’s costs.

• TechCrunch Tech press

  TechCrunch reports startups, funding, and the business of technology, close to the industry it covers. We analyze it in Tech and AI as the build-and-fund side of the tech press, useful precisely because it sits near the optimist pole.

• Futurism Critical / anti-hype

  Futurism covers science and technology with a recent turn toward debunking AI overreach and corporate spin. We place it in Tech and AI on the critical side of the hype debate.

• Slow Boring Policy / abundance

  Slow Boring is Matt Yglesias's newsletter of center-left policy analysis: pro-housing, pro-growth, and impatient with his own side's activists. It works from the premise that boring policy detail, done right, matters more than the discourse.