Deadline Hollywood (Deadline.com), is one of the top news sources for the entertainment industry. According to Deadline, its site is visited by industry leaders and “key decision-makers” in various fields. This might indicate that Deadline’s news is trustworthy since it is relied on by leaders across different fields.
However, since it is primarily an entertainment news source, it begs the question how widespread Deadline’s reliability is across other more political topics it covers. Moreover, its reliability may be compromised due the audience it may be catering towards.
Deadline is headquartered in New York City and Los Angeles – both cities with primarily liberal voters. Hollywood entertainers are also generally considered to be quite liberal, and this is the main topic covered by Deadline. Is this skew towards the left that we see in both where Deadline is based and the topics it covers affecting its level of bias and trustworthiness? At Biasly, we endeavor to evaluate the accuracy and dependability of all media outlets. Let us investigate the reliability and accuracy of the Deadline.
Does Reliability Matter?
Reliability, in general, refers to how trustworthy or accurate information, or in this case, a news source is. If we consider this definition, it quickly becomes clear why reliability is important in media sources. If we can’t trust the things we read then there isn’t much of a point in continuing to consume content from that source, after all. So how exactly can we gauge the reliability of a news source anyways?
There are several potential measures of reliability to look out for when trying to determine whether a media source is reliable or not. Red flags for an unreliable article can include the presence of wild unsubstantiated claims, facts dependent on other unreliable sources, heavy use of opinionated language, and more. Some indicators of a reliable news source, on the other hand, include things like:
- Absence of subjective/opinionated language in articles
- Credible sources cited (e.g., neutral sources, .gov, .edu websites)
- Facts and statistics backed by multiple relevant outside sources
- Use of primary sources when possible (e.g., interviews, quotes)
- Information that remains consistent across news sources
So How Does Deadline Fare in its Reliability?
The political reliability index developed by Biasly objectively assesses news organizations’ accuracy and trustworthiness. Deadline’s overall Reliability Score has been rated as ‘Fair’ by Biasly. This rating is a weighted average of two distinct scores: the Fact Analysis Score and the Source Analysis Score, each evaluating separate components of Deadline’s Reliability. When computing the Average Reliability of the article the Fact Analysis score is more heavily weighted. Deadline has not yet received a Fact Analysis score, however.
Deadline’s Source Analysis Score is ‘Fair,’ which suggests readers can trust some of the sources, links, and quotes provided by the news source. This score, which is based on A.I., focuses on assessing the quality of sources and quotes used including their number, lengths, uniqueness, and diversity.
Since scores such as the Source Analysis one are based on percentages and averages, individual articles could be more or less trustworthy depending on the context, author, and other factors. Our findings show that Deadline can be relied on some of the time, but readers may need to exercise caution when reading articles that are not as trustworthy.
Let us analyze the supporting data for Deadline’s rankings and discuss what to watch out for while searching for trustworthy news sources.
Deadline Accuracy and Reliability
The credibility of news organizations is significantly impacted by bias and political orientation. The political orientation is less obvious in this case, given the nature of the entertainment topics that Deadline usually publishes. However, we can still evaluate the integrity of Deadline’s news stories and deduce how well it supports assertions with evidence, and see whether this is indeed the case. To gauge the articles’ correctness and factuality, we will verify whether they contain selection and omission bias
Selection bias is when stories and facts are selected or deselected, often on ideological grounds, to create a narrative in support of the new sources’ ideology. Omission bias, on the other hand, is when different opinions and political views regarding a situation are left out so that the reader is only exposed to the ideological perspective supported by the author. It’s important to keep in mind these two types of biases when trying to assess an article’s level of accuracy.
Biasly assigns a percentage score to accuracy, with one being the least accurate and 100 being the most. Ratings are calculated by weighing assertions with supporting evidence, the number of reliable internal sources, and the number of reliable external sources employed. A full page at Biasly’s website includes dependability and accuracy ratings for newly released Deadline news stories. As we previously stated, according to the reports analytics have assessed, Deadline has a Fair reliability score. This score can vary from article to article, though, and the most extreme variations in dependability are caused by bias, notably omission, and selection bias. Consider also, The Chicago Tribune, which has a “Medium Conservative” Bias and a “Fair” reliability score according to Biasly. For example, they had one article that had an “Excellent” reliability score titled, “The Rev. Jesse Jackson’s half-century at the DNC: Landmark speeches and presidential bids helped reshape a party,” and another article called, “Democrats unveil the stage for next week’s DNC in Chicago,” that had a “Poor” reliability score. As a result, stories displaying political leaning are less reliable than neutral ones.
For instance, this Deadline article titled, “Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos Defends Dave Chappelle, Ricky Gervais Free Speech: “It Used To Be A Very Liberal Issue” has a conservative bias. Concerning the selection and omission bias, the author Bruce Haring does a good job of quoting an important source to the story, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos. However, Haring failed to include any other perspectives on the issue at hand, resulting in a biased view as to whether Chapple and Gervais should be condemned for anti-trans rhetoric in their acts. Haring writes about what Sarandos is quoted saying:
“He added that the only way comedians can figure out what’s acceptable is by ‘crossing the line every once in a while. I think it’s very important to the American culture generally to have free expression.’”
This article portrays a mostly conservative stance due to promoting Sarandos’s perspective while not addressing the roots of the complaints against Chappelle and Gervais. Furthermore, Sarandos’s opinion on the matter garnered support from conservatives, according to Haring. This reveals the conservative alignment with what Sarandos is arguing for, making for an overall conservative article. If Haring had gone into depth about why Chappelle and Gervais were being criticized, and why more left-leaning people were outraged by their comments, it would provide a more balanced view of the topic. Therefore this article can be considered somewhat reliable.
We will take a closer look at more examples like this below, providing a further investigation into the reliability of Deadline’s articles. This will include its use of selection bias, omission bias, and the quality of its sources and facts used.
Analysis of Reliability in Deadline’s Online News Articles
Deadline’s online news articles are more casual than those of traditional news outlets but aim to provide standard, objective reporting. While they may occasionally lean towards a particular ideology, it is important to identify when an article starts to become more of an opinion piece as opposed to news. Typical online news articles are free from the author’s opinion, but occasionally, and depending on the news source, they may exist. It’s when these lines blur that the credibility of information can come into question.
Quality of Sources and Facts Used
Deadline can be good at using reliable sources from both sides of the ideological divide and citing facts as evidence, however, this is not the case for every article. For instance, think about, “Tucker Carlson Claims He’s Under Attack By “Liberal Mob” That Writes “Our Movies And Sitcoms.” In this article from Lisa de Moraes, 13 quotes are used. Of those 13 quotes, eight of them are short, three of them are medium-length, and two are long quotes. Longer quotes can indicate higher reliability if the source is reputable.
In addition to that, the author’s 4 sources for the article were as follows:
- Fox News Political Commentator Tucker Carlson (Conservative-leaning)
- A watchdog organization called Media Matters (Liberal-leaning)
- MSNBC Political Commentator Chris Hayes (Liberal-leaning)
- Fox News (Conservative-leaning)
The number of sources used is quite few, and the diversity and credibility appear to be even, though the usage of these sources skews in favor of conservatism. Furthermore, most of their quotes are opinions from their sources and are not as much about statistical facts. The article is accurate to the events overall but leaves out information regarding the credibility of the attacks that Carlson is claiming to face. To give them credit the article is indeed right-leaning but not excessively so. Still, de Moraes consistently tends to lean towards the right when writing it, giving average quality sources and a lack of holistic facts to the article.
Selection and Omission Bias
In a left-leaning example of bias from Deadline (which make up a majority of the source’s articles), we can see an author, Ted Johnson, portray Donald Trump in a somewhat negative light amidst his 2024 presidential campaign even though he tries to be objective. The article, “‘This Has Been Going On And On’: CNN Cuts Away From Donald Trump Press Conference As Former President Makes Marathon Opening Statement — Update,” tends to focus on the struggles of Trump’s campaign and his strategy to win the race. It limits discussing any positive aspects of his campaign. Furthermore, the headline of the article emphasizes the lack of attention that Trump is receiving from news outlets, which reflects poorly on him.
The total number of quotes from Johnson’s article is only six with two being short quotes, one being long, and three medium-length quotes. Here we see a quote used from Trump:
“At another moment, Trump got in a swipe at CNN‘s Chris Wallace. “Not the father. There’s no resemblance between him and Mike Wallace, that I can tell you.”
This quote from Trump is selected to be in the article because it is aligned with the narrative that Trump is more focused on personal attacks than policy in his campaign. This does not bode well for him, establishing some liberal bias. The author omits any contention that news outlets should have continued coverage of Trump’s speech, and rather supports their decision not to, saying that he “meandered into different subjects,” for example. By omitting contradictory points of view, the authors reduce the reliability of their article, making stories like these sound like opinion pieces.
In the articles we have discussed so far, many are mostly biased and exclude adequate relevant background and information that may contradict the author’s position. As a news organization with a liberal slant, Deadline has published pieces that confirm this but has also published pieces on the flip side of the coin. This shows that bias can vary in its forms and that by looking at typical trustworthiness indications, you can keep yourself informed on the most accurate news.
So Is Deadline Reliable?
It can be argued that Deadline is a semi-reliable news source, with many of its articles being trustworthy, and others, not so much. As you research media reliability and accuracy more often, it will be easier for you to detect problems with sources, selection, omission, and factuality. To help with this, you can use Biasly’s News Bias Checker to uncover reliability problems and assist you in finding the most accurate and dependable news.