Google News overwhelmingly propped up leftist media outlets in the aftermath of the CNN debate between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, MRC Free Speech America can confirm.
MRC researchers conducted a clean search query for “Biden,” “Trump,” and “Presidential Debate” in Google News tabs on Friday. The results, while unsurprising, revealed that the tech giant significantly boosted leftist media outlets a day after polls showed that Trump dominated Biden in the first presidential debate ahead of the 2024 general election.
Key Findings:
- Out of the 12 spots in the Google News tab, the Media Research Center found that only one right-leaning outlet was highlighted when searching for “Biden.”
- When searching for “Trump,” only leftist outlets were exclusively highlighted.
- Similarly, when searching for “Presidential Debate,” Google News barely spotlighted Fox News, while prominently featuring 16 leftist outlets.
Google Highlights Leftist Outlets by an 11 to 1 Ratio in Search for “Biden” in News Tab
The CNN debate has been widely described as a Biden “bloodbath,” but do not expect Google to show right-leaning outlets using similar language.
Analysis completed by MRC researchers shows that Google News results for the “Biden” and “Trump” queries almost completely excluded right-leaning media outlets, based on a media list provided by AllSides.
By an 11 to 1 ratio, Google highlighted leftist media outlets while censoring reports from right-leaning media outlets as categorized by AllSides.
Instead, the tech giant prominently featured media outlets such as CNN, The Washington Post, NBC News, Politico and The Associated Press, all of which are dubbed as left-leaning media by AllSides.
Other media outlets included The Hill, Forbes and The Wall Street Journal, which are considered center-leaning by AllSides.
Google News also spotlighted New York Magazine, a publication that has fantasized about jailing Trump, and Slate, an outlet identified as left by AllSides.
Fox News was the only outlet considered right by AllSides that Google News dared to show under the “Biden” search results.
Google Displays Zero Right-Leaning Media Outlets in News Tab for “Trump” Search
Google News conveniently did not show a single right-leaning media outlet in its results when researchers searched the query “Trump.” Instead, the tech giant brazenly highlighted 14 notoriously leftist outlets.
When searching for "Trump" on Google News, MRC found that the results prominently featured 14 left-leaning news outlets and did not include any right-leaning ones.
The displayed outlets included The New York Times, CNN, ABC News, Axios, The New Yorker, and MSNBC, which are all considered left-leaning by AllSides
Google News also featured appearances by Gallup, Foreign Policy, BBC, and WHYY (a PBS and NPR affiliate).
While AllSides does not categorize these specific media outlets, a quick summary of NewsBusters' analyses on each of them underscores their penchant for leftist bias in the content they promote.
In 2022, NewsBusters reported that Gallup may have discontinued a 74-year-old poll of the “most admired man” to potentially avoid giving it to Trump, who had won the title in 2020, surpassing former President Barack Obama.
Not to be outdone by Gallup, Foreign Policy in 2023, without providing evidence, accused Elon Musk-owned X of being a “sewer of disinformation” after the tech mogul promised to protect Free Speech upon acquiring the platform.
WHYY, meanwhile, has been criticized for left-leaning bias, as previously exposed by NewsBusters reports here, here and here.
Similarly, NewsBusters has also consistently exposed BBC’s anti-Israel rhetoric.
Google Highlights Leftist Media by 16 to 1 Ratio in ‘Presidential Debate’ Search
Google News’s leftist bias was equally evident when MRC researchers searched the prompt “Presidential Debate” in the clean environment search.
This time, Google News also propped up PBS News, USA Today and Reuters. The only right-leaning media outlet to make an appearance was Fox News.
METHODOLOGY: For this report, MRC Free Speech America analyzed the June 28 Google News tab for three separate queries.
For the first query, researchers searched “Biden.” For the second query, researchers searched “Trump.” For the third query, researchers searched “Presidential Debate.”
To assess bias, the researchers examined the results on Google News and noted the ranking of each media outlet. MRC Free Speech America used the AllSides media bias chart to determine the political leaning of the media outlets presented.
MRC Free Speech America created an algorithm to automate this process in a clean environment. A “clean environment” allows for an organic search to populate results without the influence of prior search history and tracking cookies.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Readers should be aware that this report only uses the AllSides list to analyze ratings of outlets considered by AllSides to be “left” and “lean left” or “right” and “lean right” and does not necessarily reflect MRC’s characterizations of these outlets.
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