The Telegraph (also known as the Daily Telegraph) has long been famous for being one of the authentic “newspapers of record” in Britain, with a long and venerable history as an institution of conservative British opinion that has helped it to survive since 1855, more than earning the right to bear the motto “Was, is, and will be.” Despite this tradition of conservatism, The Telegraph has built itself a lasting reputation commensurate with its status as an institution of British media, with a 2023 YouGov poll showing that only 24% of respondents consider the paper “untrustworthy.” Furthermore, it has been praised for its reporting and exacting editorial standards, being awarded National Newspaper of the Year in 2009 by the British Press Association.
This is not to say that The Telegraph does not also have its critics. The paper’s reputation for a rightward slant has led to it being termed the “Torygraph” by political opponents. They have often been accused of letting advertisers and commercial interests influence their coverage and have breached the International Press Standards Organization’s Editors Code of Conduct nine times, according to Press Gazette. With all this mixed messaging, does The Telegraph deserve its reputation as a reliable news source? At Biasly, it’s our job to find the answer to this question for The Telegraph and all media outlets. Let us investigate further in this article.
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 that 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 if a media source is reliable or not. Red flags for an unreliable article can include the presence of wild or 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 The Telegraph Fare in its Reliability?
The political reliability index developed by Biasly objectively assesses news organizations’ accuracy and trustworthiness. According to the assessment on The Telegraph’s Media Ratings page, The Telegraph possesses a Fair overall reliability rating. This rating is a weighted average of two distinct scores: the Fact Analysis Score and the Source Analysis Score, each evaluating separate components of The Telegraph’s Reliability. When computing the Average Reliability of the article the Fact Analysis score is more heavily weighted. The Telegraph doesn’t have a Fact Analysis score yet, which is rated by Biasly’s analysts, but it does have a Source Analysis score, as follows.
The Telegraph’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.
However, because these scores are aggregates, individual articles could be more or less trustworthy than others depending on several contextual factors. Our findings show that The Telegraph’s reporting is quality and fairly factual, but they have been responsible for publishing some inaccurate or misleading pieces. In this article, we have supplied more supporting information that will be instructive for anyone wanting to learn how to search for trustworthy news.
The Telegraph Accuracy and Reliability
Any media organization’s credibility will be impacted by its reliability and political orientation. We can evaluate the integrity of what The Telegraph publishes, aligning our assessment of this integrity with how well it supports assertions with evidence. We will check for selection and omission bias as we assess their articles for factuality and veracity.
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 wildly inaccurate and 100 being as accurate as possible. Ratings are calculated by checking whether the assertions in an article are bolstered with sufficient supporting evidence, and the number of reliable sources employed, both internal and external. Biasly’s website contains a Media Ratings page with accuracy and dependability assessments for many newly released stories, including stories from The Telegraph.
To demonstrate how bias works across the British political spectrum, consider The Guardian, which has a “Somewhat Liberal” bias in contrast to The Telegraph’s “Somewhat Conservative” rating and a similar analyst reliability score of “Fair, according to Biasly. The Guardian’s article reliability can also vary across cases; for example, they have an article with an “Excellent” reliability rating titled “Time’s Up Leader Resigns after Criticism for Aiding Cuomo Administration on Sexual Harassment Allegations” and another article called “Defiance in the Face of Israeli Aggression Gives Palestinians Everywhere Hope” that has only a “Good” reliability rating. Generally, stories that display an open political leaning are less reliable than neutral ones that stick to just-the-facts reporting.
As an example of how difficult the line can be to draw, however, consider the Telegraph article “Boris Johnson: Trump’s Conviction was ‘Liberal Hit Job’ Rated in the Center-right by Biasly, if we judge using our earlier definitions of selection and omission bias—the author. Rozina Sabur, presents the article in a detached, objective manner, getting a wide variety of sources from across the political spectrum to weigh in on the issue of how their projected government expects to work with a possible President Trump, given his recent felony conviction. Sabur provides many more quotes from conservative sources, however, and has them go into much greater detail about how they are in a better position to work with Trump than the opposition. As one anonymous source puts it:
“It’s much more of a problem for (Labour) than it is for us. There is a danger for (Labour party leader) Keir Starmer that he is just going to constantly be asked to condemn what one of his candidates has said about Trump.”
Sabur’s article is filled with quotes from those who endorse or support Trump, including Boris Johnson’s endorsement:
“Whatever his detractors may say, I believe that Donald Trump – at his best- could offer the world the strong, confident leadership that it needs.”
While the article has quotes from sources that do not endorse Trump, the selection of quotes paints the source as ambiguous or vacillating, and other sources are given comparatively little exposure, offering little or no comment:
“Earlier in the day, (Prime Minister) Mr. (Rishi) Sunak had refused to discuss the outcome while campaigning, saying: ‘You wouldn’t expect me to comment on another country’s domestic politics or judicial processes.”
“Should Labour win the general election on July 4, (Starmer) said: ‘We will work with whoever is elected president… but it is an unprecedented situation, there is no doubt about that.’”
The article asserts that experts agree that a sentence for Trump is unlikely and adds supporting statements from GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell that defend Trump against his accusers:
“Mr. McConnell said the charges against Trump ‘should never have been brought’ and that he expected them to be ‘overturned on appeal.’
The article is another example of The Telegraph’s tendency to take a somewhat more conservative stance, even in its non-opinion articles. Sabur fails to balance her sources and portrays the opposition to Trump as comparatively passive. If Sabur had included more information about Labour’s plans for working with Trump or more statements from Trump’s opposition, that would have made a more balanced approach.
We will provide additional examples below that will give a deeper analysis of The Telegraph’s articles’ reliability. This will include its use of selection bias and omission bias and the quality of the facts and sources that it chooses to use.
Analysis of Reliability in The Telegraph Opinion Pieces
Editorials serve a valuable function in journalism. They provide an outlet for reporters to express their personal views and give readers some insight into how reporters think about current events. Although the subjectivity of opinion pieces makes them inherently less reliable than factual reporting, they can still be worthwhile to read to expose one to different points of view.
The Telegraph’s opinion pieces have notoriously been the subject of much criticism over their conservative, pro-business approach. They have also been involved in several controversies over their credibility regarding their reporting on climate change, where reputable climate scientists charged them with making many false or misleading claims about the science.
One article, “Climate Change: Fake News or Global Threat? This Is The Science”, published in 2019, was advertised as reporting on the science of global warming and the factors that influence it but presented many false claims that scientists suggested were not supported by the evidence. They argued that the article misled readers by claiming that climate science is ”up for debate,” creating a false balance not supported by scientific literature.
Quality of Sources and Facts Used
The Telegraph is generally dependable when it comes to the use of reliable sources, although there are times when the opinions of their critics seem to have some merit to them. For example, consider the article “Starmer’s Labour Will Oversee the Final Dissolution of Britain as a Nation-State.” In this article by Allister Heath, there are no sourced quotes; there are only 11 short quotes mainly used to express skepticism about a particular concept. All the quotes are short- it is important to note that more extended quotes are a general indicator of a reliable source.
As a tremendous indicator of the article’s reliability score, no sources are used in this article. The quotes are not actually from any verifiable source, and it is unclear what the author is responding to here other than a strawman of the Labor Party platform. The only quotes in the article are scare quotes used to express the author’s skepticism toward the Labour Party platform. The author’s assertions are not supported by evidence.
The usage of sources is poor to nonexistent; it comes off as if the author is just venting rather than seeking to inform. A reader coming in without context would not have any way to objectively evaluate the article’s content, as the information required for a balanced perspective is not provided. The author’s priming of the reader and the poor sourcing point to the article being an untrustworthy source of information.
This is not the only example of poor sourcing from The Telegraph. The article from earlier, “Climate Change: Fake News or Global Threat? This Is The Science”, uses sources that make inaccurate claims and phrase the article in such a way as to create doubt in the reader.
For example, the article presents one source’s view that carbon dioxide has little to do with climate change, indicating instead that water vapor is responsible. However, the article then states that water vapor in the atmosphere is affected by temperature and cannot cause a warming trend. The article phrases these conflicting views as the opinions of different scientists, creating the appearance of a debate that does not exist. The articles was a subject of criticism by several different climate scientists, whose background and expertise, as well as their numerous cited works, should allow the reader to consider them a more reliable source on this particular topic.
Selection and Omission Bias
Another extreme example from the Telegraph comes from an article in which they disapprove of Joe Biden’s immigration policies, even while trying to present their analysis as objective. The article, “Biden Administration Offering ‘Mass Amnesty’ to Thousands of Migrants”, by Benedict Smith, selectively portrays the Biden administration’s handling of asylum cases as bumbling and hopelessly misguided.
Nothing in the article shows what the administration’s rationale might be, only citing a 2022 memo from a legal adviser with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that supposedly instructed prosecutors to allow illegal immigration cases to be dismissed for migrants not seen as national security threats. The critical thing to pay attention to in this article is the selection of quotes.
This article has ten quotes, four of which are from Donald Trump condemning the Biden administration’s immigration policy and attacking Biden personally. Six of the quotes are short, and four are of medium length. The quotes are chosen to put the Biden administration’s immigration policies in a negative light, and no quotes defend the policies. Instead, they all express conservative views on immigration; there are even three quotes from anonymous Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. Here we see a quote from Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge who works for the Center for Immigration Studies:
“This is just a massive amnesty under the guise of prosecutorial discretion. You’re basically allowing people who don’t have a right to be in the United States to be here indefinitely.”
The language and diction in the article are not necessarily extreme, but the bias comes out in what the author chooses to leave in and what the author omits. For instance, the article mentions that this “mass amnesty” stems from a 2022 memo sent by a legal advisor with ICE that instructed prosecutors to allow cases to be dismissed for migrants not deemed national security threats.
Yet the article provides no information about the impetus behind this policy and says only that the move “appears” to stem from this memo. The author could have provided a more concrete origin for this decision instead of pointing to the New York Post’s investigation and hoping the reader turns to that- the article doesn’t even link to the Post’s findings. If more evidence were provided it could vastly strengthen the argument.
In the article “Starmer’s Labour Will Oversee the Final Dissolution of Britain as a Nation-State” which we analyzed earlier, the author makes many assertions about the goals of the Labour Party without any supporting evidence from Labour politicians that this is indeed true. The author attempts to prime the reader to view the issue similarly; there is no attempt to provide a balanced perspective or be informative.
The article is designed to prime the reader against the Labour Party platform, as evidenced by such quotes as:
“(Labour) will be predisposed to accept any new treaty that limits Britain’s ability to govern itself, and will cheer any ruling from a global court striking down the actions of a national government.”
This assertion is made with no sourcing, evidence, or contradictory points of view that Labour would act in such a way, making the article less reliable.
It is often the case that there are issues with factuality, sources, selection, and omission bias in opinion pieces. The articles that we have covered to this point are primarily biased, conveniently leaving out any information that would contradict the authors’ position. As a news organization with a conservative slant that also knows its audience very well, The Telegraph is naturally incentivized to continue appealing to conservative viewpoints in order to sustain its right-wing audience.
So Is The Telegraph Reliable?
In conclusion, The Telegraph is a semi-reliable news source that, despite its political slant, has an adequate reputation for and a long history of journalistic integrity. However, we have found that they have also been responsible for some exceptions to this trend. Like any media outlet, The Telegraph’s publications are never 100% objective and unbiased; some are more unbiased than others. At Biasly, we want to give you the information and tools you will need to spot problems with sources, selection, omission, and factuality. Consider using our News Bias Checker to uncover issues and assist you in finding the most accurate and dependable sources.