Blaze through maze of media bias Chart analyzes, ranks content; see where your top sources land

All eyes are on 2020, but will they absorb news with 20-20 vision?

Vanessa Otero hopes so. In fact, she’s developed a tool to help information consumers navigate the high seas of bias.

Otero is a Denver-based patent attorney and founder of Ad Fontes Media. Ad Fontes is Latin, meaning “to the source.” Her organization’s mission doesn’t need a lawyer to make a sensible argument: It’s “making news consumers smarter and news media better.”

The crown jewel of Ad Fontes Media, a gem of varying value depending upon the eye of the beholder, is Otero’s Media Bias Chart. Based on an extensive methodology that analyzes and ranks content, the Media Bias Chart isn’t quite like anything else you’ve seen.

“We’re not measuring consumer opinions, clicks and views, or ‘user engagement,’” Otero says. “Plenty of other companies do that in order to sell ads, and we think that is part of the problem we face in the current media landscape.”

No, the Media Bias Chart is all about content. You can read much more about the methodology, the chart and Otero herself at: mediabiaschart.com

As times have changed, so has the need for greater scrutiny of the information we routinely absorb.

“In the past, national evening news programs, local evening news programs, and the front pages of print newspapers were dominated by fact-reporting stories,” Otero told MarketWatch last April. “Now, however, many sources people consider to be ‘news sources’ are actually dominated by analysis and opinion pieces.”

She added: “I think the extremes are very toxic and damaging to the country. These extreme sources play on people’s worst instincts, like fear and tribalism, and take advantage of people’s confirmation biases.”

Now that the 2020 presidential campaign is starting to ramp up, The Press thought it a good idea to share Otero’s Media Bias Chart. Here’s our short interview with her.

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PRESS: Vanessa, how much and what kind of feedback do you get from newspaper readers across the country?

OTERO: I get emails, blog comments, and tweets with feedback every day. I get a spike in comments when I put out blog posts and updates, but I hear from people all across the country (and the world) every day.

Most feedback is very thoughtful. Some quibble with particular placements of certain sources, some ask about things they would like to be represented in the chart, and many discuss particular things they have seen in the media that make them concerned about quality and bias, like examples of outlets getting something wrong, or seemingly unethical influence of those who own media sources. The majority of my feedback, though, is from high school and college educators asking to use the chart, because those who are tasked with the difficult job of teaching critical thinking in this very complex media landscape view this as a valuable tool. It is very inspiring to see so many people eager to do something positive about the problems of political polarization and low-quality/highly biased sources.

PRESS: Roughly how much time do you spend on Ad Fontes Media vs. your work as a lawyer?

OTERO: I’m still a full-time patent attorney, so Monday-Friday during business hours, it’s lawyer time. I pretty much spend all my nights and weekends on Ad Fontes Media, but I love it.

PRESS: What’s the greatest compliment you’ve received?

OTERO: I’ve gotten some very heartening compliments. One of my favorites, which I get from time to time, is when someone says “thank you — I only read sources from the green square now!” I take this as a huge compliment but also a huge responsibility. Another particular one isn’t so much a compliment, but a story about how one person used the chart to actually bridge divides ... a woman named Betty who brought people of different political stripes together to have a productive dialogue in her senior living community.

PRESS: And the most vicious criticism?

OTERO: I’ve gotten plenty of that from left and right. I tend not to take it very seriously, because those folks tend to not have very serious ideas.

One of the more creative right-wing criticisms was a photoshopped hammer-and-sickle on top of my chart — pretty funny, I thought. Also from the right, I have gotten the more run-of-the-mill insults like “libtard” and terms that are especially reserved for women. Infowars wrote an article saying my chart was from the mainstream media, and they made their own, um, alternate chart.

From some of the left bottom-dwelling sources themselves, I’ve been called a “Russian propagandist” and a mainstream media stooge — also hilarious. Wonkette (also bottom left) wrote an article about how I am really dumb and so is my chart, in their style of writing that is full of internet-snark and bad words. Their fans proceeded to comment on my twitter and blog to also tell me how dull I must be because I don’t get the genius and truth of their favorite source. Both the Infowars and Wonkette articles are worth looking up.

Oh, another funny one was when someone told me I should go back to being a “pattent” (sic) lawyer, apparently not realizing that it is really hard to be a patent lawyer.

PRESS: Thanks for what you’re doing, Vanessa!

OTERO: Thank you for being a local journalist! You’re a modern-day hero.

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Editor’s note: While studying the Media Bias Chart, keep this poem in mind:

Here various news we tell, of love and strife,

Of peace and war, health and sickness, death and life,

Of loss and gain, of famine and of store,

Of storms at sea, and travels on the shore,

Of prodigies, and portents seen in air,

Of fires, and plagues, and stars with blazing hair,

Of turns of fortune, changes in the state,

The fall of fav’rites, projects of the great,

Of old mismanagements, taxations new,

All neither wholly false, nor wholly true.

— From the Connecticut Bee

Published in 1800

Still true today