Fact-Checker Bias Claims Debunked: US Conservative Media Simply Less Trustworthy, Study Finds

As debates over media bias intensify in the wake of the US presidential election, new research suggests that lower trustworthiness ratings for conservative news outlets reflect their actual practices rather than systematic bias from fact-checkers.

A comprehensive analysis by the Complexity Science Hub evaluated more than 11,000 news sources across nine countries, finding no evidence that NewsGuard, a leading media reliability rating service, discriminates against conservative outlets in either its selection process or ratings.

“It seems unlikely that NewsGuard has an inherent bias against conservative sources, both in selecting and giving them lower ratings. Instead, the US media system is flooded with right-wing sources that tend to not adhere to professional editorial practices,” said Jula Lühring, the study’s lead author from the Complexity Science Hub.

The research, published in the Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media, examined NewsGuard’s ratings across the United States, Great Britain, Italy, Canada, France, Germany, Austria, Australia, and New Zealand since 2022.

The findings come at a crucial moment, as the incoming Trump administration and far-right Republicans in Congress have been targeting misinformation researchers and accusing NewsGuard of censoring conservative news sites.

The study revealed that US news sources consistently receive lower trustworthiness scores compared to those from other nations, particularly among right-leaning outlets. However, researchers found this reflects objective criteria rather than ideological bias.

“Smaller (hyper-)partisan sources tend to lack editorial practices and transparency measures. Since these are key criteria for NewsGuard, judging based on NewsGuard criteria results in an objectively lower overall trustworthiness,” Lühring explained.

The researchers conducted manual verification of NewsGuard’s coverage in the US, UK, and Germany. “We manually checked sources in the US, UK, and Germany, and found that the database misses almost no news sites with substantial traffic. The sites it does miss are not systematically biased towards any political ideology,” Lühring noted.

Jana Lasser, a professor at the University of Graz and study co-author, emphasized how these findings build on previous research. The results align with a 2023 study published in PNAS Nexus that found NewsGuard’s ratings consistently match those of other fact-checking organizations.

While validating NewsGuard’s overall reliability, the researchers did identify potential limitations in how the database is used. They cautioned against oversimplified binary trustworthiness labels, which could affect the validity of some misinformation research.

“We found that using a binary ‘trustworthy’ vs. ‘not trustworthy’ classification is prone to changes in the database over time, potentially leading to large variations in the measured prevalence of untrustworthy information,” said Lasser. The team recommends using NewsGuard’s more nuanced continuous point score system instead.

As concerns about misinformation continue to shape public discourse, particularly during election seasons, this research provides important context for understanding how media reliability is evaluated. The findings suggest that improving trustworthiness ratings for conservative outlets may require addressing fundamental issues in editorial practices rather than adjusting the rating system itself.