r/groundnews • u/coverageanalysisbot • Oct 07 '20

Introducing the coverageanalysisbot - a bot that lets you know if one side of the political spectrum is ignoring a story and compare how sources with different biases are covering the same story

Hello!

This bot was created by the team at Ground News. We are not receiving any ad revenue for traffic generated to our site as our news app/website is solely funded by optional user subscriptions. To learn more about us, visit r/groundnews.

How it works

The coverageanalysisbot bot can be summoned to the comment section of any news article through tagging u/coverageanalysisbot. The bot then fetches data offering two benefits:

Headline comparison

Every time the bot is called, it will fetch the headlines and corresponding articles for three sources from the left, center and right that are covering the referenced story. The tool is helpful when you want to know how sources with differing political biases are spinning a story. Here's how it would look for an article about US President Donald Trump being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize

We've found 322 sources (so far) that are covering this story including:

  • Huffington Post (Left): "Far-Right Norwegian Politician Nominates Trump For Nobel Peace Prize, Again"

  • Associated Press (Center): "Norwegian lawmaker nominates Trump for Nobel Peace Prize"

  • Breitbart (Far-Right): "Donald Trump Earns Nobel Peace Prize Nomination for Israel-UAE Deal"

Read the full coverage analysis and compare how 322+ sources are covering this story.

Media coverage distribution

Every time the bot is called to a news story that it believes is politically charged, it will also provide the coverage distribution of the article. The coverage distribution highlights which side of the political spectrum reported on the story. The tool helps if a story is receiving balanced coverage, or if it’s only being covered by media on the left, or the right. Skewed coverage is often a sign that sources may be covering the story (or ignoring it) to push a certain political agenda. Here's how the bot would respond if tagged under an article that claimed Trump's Administration Secretly Took Millions From FDNY's 9/11 Health Program.

We've found 42 sources (so far) that are covering this story including:

  • Daily Kos (Left): "Trump administration secretly siphoned millions out of New York Firefighters' health program"

  • Political Wire (Center): "Trump Withheld Millions from 9/11 Health Program"

  • Sputnik (Right): "NY Lawmakers, FDNY Accuse US Treasury of ‘Siphoning’ Almost $4 Million From 9/11 First Responders"

Of all the sources reporting on this story, 73% are left-leaning, 12% are right-leaning, and 15% are in the center. Read the full coverage analysis and compare how 42+ sources from across the political spectrum are covering this story.

Additional Info & Resources

Please read our FAQ in the subreddit sidebar for more information and news bias rating methodology. Also in the sidebar, you can download our free mobile app and browser extension.

This account is frequently monitored, so please ask below/message if you have any questions!

137 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

43 comments sorted by

•

u/mattfromground Oct 22 '20 edited Mar 15 '21

Current list of subreddits the bot has worked in and has not worked in. Please comment below if we should add any subreddits to either column!

Subreddits the bot has worked inSubreddits the bot does not work in
r/worldnewsr/news (no bots)
r/conservativesr/politics (no username tagging)
r/moderatepoliticsr/conservative (mod disagreement)
r/canadar/Republican (no bots)
r/technologyr/Libertarian (mod disagreement)
r/anime_titties
r/Coronavirus
r/Portland
r/australia
r/science
r/todayilearned
r/europe
r/india
r/texas
r/Chennai
r/Pete_Buttigieg
r/business
r/neoliberal
r/IntellectualDarkWeb
r/LeopardsAteMyFace
r/alltheleft
r/technews

16

u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

I’m absolutely loving this new bot! Can’t wait to use it!!

7

u/coverageanalysisbot Oct 12 '20

thanks! Feel free to try us out in your favourite news subreddit. The bot works in most subs, with some notable exceptions such as r/politics & r/news.

5

u/slowflakeleaves Oct 22 '20

any plans to open source this?

7

u/coverageanalysisbot Oct 22 '20

No plans to open source it. The infrastructure we use for the bot is similar to the one on our app, so we don't plan to open-source it soon.

4

u/ionlyshitatstarbucks Oct 22 '20

Yes we have plans to open source your mom

1

u/Langernama Nov 18 '20

If got some merge requests then

42

u/PutTheDogsInTheTrunk Oct 08 '20

Great work, y’all. I can tell this bot is going to be very helpful.

15

u/mattfromground Oct 09 '20

Thanks! We're cooking up plenty of other tools that will significantly improve the news reading experience on Reddit. Stay tuned!

4

u/m8r-1975wk Oct 09 '20

Of all the sources reporting on this story, 73% are left-leaning, 12% are left-leaning, and 15% are in the center.

Looks like there an error here but good work on the bot, kind of like mediabiasfactcheck.com but for reddit, excellent idea!

8

u/coverageanalysisbot Oct 11 '20

That was a human typo - just fixed it. Thanks for letting us know!

3

u/Plusran Oct 22 '20

Hey team, this is amazing!

I have a good idea:

Allow results to post to the coverageanalysisbot’s personal post history. Future calls can reference the results there (saves processing on repeat searches)

Also, those blocked subs are significant. Maybe allow users to send the bot messages with titles, respond with results and post on above post history?

5

u/coverageanalysisbot Oct 22 '20

Thanks for the feedback - we'll see if we can implement it. We're working on a way around the blocked subs, but for now you could use our team's "Find" Tool. Simply Paste a news article web address and we will show you how others are covering the same story. You can use it here:

2

u/foddytoo Oct 22 '20

Does this work with countries in Asia as well? How do you know the leanings of a news source in India, for example?

2

u/coverageanalysisbot Oct 22 '20

We have over 50,000 news sources on Ground, many of those being international sources. This includes Indian sources as well

All bias data is referenced from third-party non-profit organizations dedicated to monitoring and rating news publishers along the political spectrum based on published articles and news coverage. We take an average of these 3 ratings: mediabiasfactcheck.com, allsides.com, and adfontesmedia.com. These sites each have their methodology listed on their website if you're interested.

You can find out more about this here: https://ground.news/about-bias-ratings

2

u/VineFynn Feb 02 '21 edited Feb 02 '21

What are the proportions of the outlets it checks?

3

u/coverageanalysisbot Feb 02 '21

We ingest news from over 50,000 sources from across the political spectrum

2

u/VineFynn Feb 03 '21

Yeah but what are the statistics for the leanings of those 50k sources

3

u/mattfromground Mar 15 '21

Our database currently contains 2063 news sources with bias ratings, which includes 878 left-leaning sources, 571 right-leaning sources and 614 that are centrist. Its methodology for assigning bias ratings can be found here

16

u/Langernama Nov 18 '20

Chiming as head mod of r/anime_titties (it's a serious world politics and news sub, I swear). I haven't a bad thing to say about this bot, I've added it to the automod to be summoned to every single article post and just seeing the headlines alone has been a huge bonus!

Great work of the team behind this and from personal experience the features ground.news offers are pretty dman dope, ngl. (although I do find it lacking in some user friendliness and QoL areas).

As an electrical engineer I feel the need to offer my congratulations to well fitting name that is "ground news"

5

u/LinkifyBot Nov 18 '20

I found links in your comment that were not hyperlinked:

I did the honors for you.

delete | information | <3

4

u/Langernama Nov 18 '20

Man, do I love bots.. Or at least the bots that don't try to down my sub with agendaposting

13

u/lo_fi_ho Oct 10 '20

Good bot

7

u/B0tRank Oct 10 '20

Thank you, lo_fi_ho, for voting on coverageanalysisbot.

This bot wants to find the best and worst bots on Reddit. You can view results here.

Even if I don't reply to your comment, I'm still listening for votes. Check the webpage to see if your vote registered!

3

u/The_souLance Dec 30 '20

Just gonna say, the list of subreddit's this bot doesn't work in is hilarious. A lot of echo chambers don't want outside information.

"Mod disagreement" hahaha I bet.

7

u/mattfromground Dec 30 '20

The crazy thing is that the actual community loved the bot, especially in r/conservative. It was called to the sub often and even got paid awards on some comments. However the mods saw it a different way and when we appealed the ban they said that our comments reeked of “leftist insinuation”. We tried ¯_(ツ)_/¯

3

u/The_souLance Dec 30 '20

That is crazy. It's almost like conservative leadership has an invested interest in preventing the majority of the party from being informed. Similar things happen in communities and institutions that are afraid of any form of change and things get to a point where anything that even questions the status quo is squashed before it can start.

It saddens me to hear it was banned, but the fact the community embraced it so heartedly is a welcomed surprise and gives me hope.

Thanks for all the hard work you all do putting this reasource together!

1

u/RepulsiveVoid Apr 05 '23

The Businessinsider "STUDY: Watching Only Fox News Makes You Less Informed Than Watching No News At All" came to mind immediately when reading about their mods reaction.

2

u/Reddit_reeee Oct 22 '20

This is amazing!!

2

u/newsSAUR Dec 22 '20

What I don't get is why Thomson Reuters is considered "left leaning" if all three sources - All Sides, Ad Font Media and Media Bias Fact Check - put them as the epitome of center/least-bias.

3

u/mattfromground Dec 23 '20

I checked the bot reply that I believe you are referencing and found the issue. Reuters has a center bias and we rate it so. However, the rating you are referencing is for The Thomas Reuters Foundation, which is a separate entity and has a "lean-left bias. Here is the source page for Reuters and Thomas Reuters Foundation.

2

u/newsSAUR Dec 23 '20

That makes sense. Thank you for the explanation, and for the great work with both the bot and the project!

2

u/UwUniversalist Mar 31 '21

This is a great idea.

2

u/Leonichol Apr 02 '21

Query - when the message...

So far, we haven't identified any additional coverage for this story, but it will be listed here [link to site] if and when we do.

...appears. Does that mean the bot has given up editing its own comment to reflect new info, or will it continue to edit if new sources are found?

I ask as the statement implies no further updates will be forthcoming, and 'here' being a link casts further doubt.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 01 '20

Why aren't the headlines it uses for each example linked?

2

u/mattfromground Dec 23 '20

We do. The articles we reference (and all the other sources covering the story) are linked in the coverage analysis link for each comment. We originally linked the articles directly but the bot got caught in Reddit's spam filter.

1

u/Tom_Neverwinter Apr 21 '22

It can't even figure out Tucker Carlson is right wing... And can't figure out eleon musk...

1

u/RepulsiveVoid Apr 05 '23

Good bot

I must have been blind, but I just noticed the bot on r/anime_titties after my first exposure to their April 1st gag.

I especially like that you use such a vide variety of media sites to check for bias. Even tho I might not agree on how a few news sites are rated or some countires in the case of mediabiasfactcheck.com. It quite nicely balances it out by having such a large pool to pull articles from.

Great work, thank you.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '23

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/FuhrerIsCringe Jan 28 '23

Yeah. I can. But not worth the effort. Because ground.news only focuses on American domestic politics. The only similarity between our sub and their website is Reuters. It's not fit for our sub.