Bleacher Report is a news publication that primarily focuses on athletic-related stories. They report news on various sports, including football, basketball, golf, and wrestling. Considering the topics that Bleacher Report most often covers, it is safe to assume that the prevalence of political bias would be less common overall. There are, however, points at which politics and sports join together. Understanding how agencies such as Bleacher Report cover these situations is important as it will allow readers to gain a greater context regarding their tendencies as a news organization.
Source: Pew Research
Consider this Pew Research study, which found that now a majority of Americans are willing to hear athletes’ opinions and beliefs about politics. Politics, and in turn, political bias are only becoming more infused within the athletic field, as a result, understanding the bias of agencies that cover athletics including Bleacher Report has become prudent.
How Does Biasly Rate News Sources?
Biasly’s algorithms produce bias ratings to help provide multiple perspectives on given articles. Biasly has analyzed 200,000+ news articles from more than 3,200 news sources through our A.I. technology and team of political analysts to find the most factual, unbiased news stories.
Biasly determines the degree of political bias in news sources by using Biasly’s Bias Meter Rating, in which Biasly’s team analyzes media sources’ reliability and bias and produces three scores, a Reliability Score that measures the accuracy of media sources; an A.I. Bias Score, evaluated by A.I.; and an Analyst Bias Score evaluated by political analysts. These scores are rated based on seven rating metrics including Tone, Tendency, Diction, Author Check, Selection/Omission, Expediency Bias, and Accuracy. These metrics help our analysts to determine the political attitude of the article.
Our A.I. machine-learning system employs natural language processing and entity-specific sentiment analysis to examine individual articles and determine their bias levels. By analyzing the key terms in an article such as policies, bias phrases, political terminologies, politicians, and their nicknames, the algorithms can rate the attitude of the text. Bias scores range from -100% and 100%, with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral.
Is Bleacher Report Politically Biased?
Biasly’s rating on Bleacher Report found that they are Somewhat Liberal, this is a score generated by its AI algorithms which determine bias through analysis of factors such as leaning of tone, opinion, and diction of the author, and, their respective tendencies. For example, Biasly found that Bleacher Report has Somewhat Liberal sentiments in their coverage of topics such as gun control and Iran, in addition to spending on public education. Biasly’s AI also rated Bleacher Report as having covered politicians like Donald Trump in a negative light.
Before we begin, we need to discuss bias. Bias is a natural function of humans, and we can express it both consciously and unconsciously. Bias is one of the most fundamental forms of pattern recognition in humans. This isn’t to lower the bar and say that “all things are biased,” but to explain how we may come to trust certain news organizations that display coverage patterns.
On the media’s part, there is an incentive to retain audiences, encourage them to purchase subscriptions, and rate products positively. Bias is a two-way street, people want to see news stories about things they care about, and the media needs viewers to continue their operations. This creates a positive feedback loop that influences what stories are covered and from what perspective. This also explains the actions of more liberal news organizations.
Analysis of Bias in Bleacher Report’s Online Articles
Having received a score of Somewhat Liberal, it can be assumed that Bleacher Report reports on some topics from a liberal perspective. However, it is important to recognize that individual articles will vary in their ratings. The overall score of Somewhat Liberal is based on an aggregated score with multiple articles included. This section will seek to understand if there is bias in their fact-based articles.
To understand if bias is present within an article, a few factors must be taken into account: the author’s tone, tendency, and diction, as well as the author’s expediency bias.
For example, the article “Steve Kerr Pleads for Gun Control in Passionate Speech After Uvalde Tragedy” provides insight into the comments Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr made regarding the Uvalde mass shooting. The article was rated as Somewhat Liberal according to Biasly, we will investigate further what factors led to this rating.
The author’s tone and tendency, or use of tone throughout the article, was slightly liberal. For example, he quoted Steve Kerr:
“There’s 50 senators right now who refuse to vote on H.R.8, which is a background check rule that the House passed a couple years ago. It’s been sitting there for two years. And there’s a reason they won’t vote on it. To hold on to power. So I ask you, Mitch McConnell, I ask all of you senators who refuse to do anything about the violence and school shootings and supermarket shootings.”
“I ask you, are you going to put your own desire for power ahead of the lives of our children and our elderly and our churchgoers? Because that’s what it looks like.”
The author also references Kerr in a positive tone:
“Kerr spoke ahead of Tuesday’s Western Conference Finals game against the Dallas Mavericks and grew quite emotional during comments that lasted for nearly three minutes”
“Kerr has long been a public advocate for stronger gun control measures. His father, Malcolm Kerr, was assassinated by gunmen when the Warriors head coach was in college.”
The author throughout the article maintains a positive tone towards Kerr, he does not challenge Kerr’s statements through the use of his tone within the article. Another issue is that the author provided no opposite sources or viewpoints to provide the reader with a different perspective, as he only used quotes from Kerr. The author’s lack of opposite sources, in addition to his use of a positive tone towards Kerr, leads to an imbalance in terms of argument on policy and an introduction of liberal bias.
The author could have provided a statement or found past statements explaining why Mitch McConnell and other conservative senators do not support that specific bill. Without this context, the reader could be led to believe that the senators simply do not care for the lives of the citizens they represent, as Steve Kerr claimed in his press conference.
Diction, or the use of inflammatory language or trigger words, was not significantly prevalent throughout this article, although there were some questionable phrases used. For example:
“Kerr was not the only high-profile figure in the NBA who called for change after yet another mass shooting in the United States. Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, who has a personal connection to education after he helped start the I PROMISE School in Akron, Ohio, also said enough is enough.”
The phrase “yet another” is suggestive language, it may imply to the reader that mass shootings are more commonplace than they may be in reality. Since the author offered no overarching statistics regarding the issue it would be easy for a reader who only received information on the issue from this article to overestimate the number of mass shootings that have occurred.
Source: Bleacher Report
Expediency bias, or the use of titles or images to sway the reader in a certain direction was somewhat prevalent within this article. The image used below the headline of the article does not contain any bias, it solely shows the head coach sitting behind his desk at the press conference where he provided his speech, this accurate portrayal of the event will not sway the reader in any direction. The title, however, with the use of the word “passionate” and the subsequent use of the word “tragedy” may lead the reader to agree with Kurr’s ensuing statements regarding the issue.
An author may have a significant impact on the bias present within an article, and their past tendencies can often indicate a direction that their writing in the future may hold. One method of checking if an author holds certain biases is by evaluating their social media history. The author of this article, Scott Polacek, on his X account, does not post regarding politics, as a result, it is difficult to glean his beliefs through this method. On his profile with Biasly, however, it can be seen that he has posted articles that have also been rated as liberal, this may be an indication of his tendencies.
It must be underscored that the vast majority of articles published on Bleacher Report are not related to politics, as a result, most of their sports-related coverage does not contain any political leanings; but when they do post political articles, they tend to lean left.
Who Owns Bleacher Report?
TNT Sports and by proxy Warner Brothers Discovery own Bleacher Report, as a result, the person who likely has the most influence is Lenny Daniels, the CEO of Bleacher Report.
Source: Wikipedia
Daniels has been involved in the athletic industry since 1988, according to Warner Brothers, as a result, his influence on any political matters inserted onto the website is likely minor because his history in any politically related topics is nonexistent.
How to Evaluate and Uncover Bias
It can often be difficult to tell if the news you watch is biased. If you have settled on a news channel, it’s usually because you trust the information you are gaining. Unfortunately, many trust the information they are hearing because it confirms what they already believe. This is referred to as “confirmation bias.” It is important to challenge your beliefs and get third-party verification that what you are hearing is the full story. This is why we recommend using Biasly to compare different news stories side-by-side using our bias ratings to figure out what both sides think of a political issue.
Considering Bleacher Report has been given a Bias Rating of Somewhat Liberal, it can be assumed that of their stories that relate to politics, some may contain some bias. It is important to understand that individual articles will contain varying levels of bias, as a result, it is helpful to remain cognisant of signs of bias, many of which we discussed in this article. Specifically regarding Bleacher Report, it is important to remember that most of their articles have no relation to politics, and solely cover sports-related topics, therefore, political bias would likely not be present within those articles. An additional method to detect bias in news articles is Biasly’s News Check which helps uncover bias and reliability issues.