Methodology
How Sift sources the news
Sift reads from a hand-curated set of news outlets, surfaces ownership and funding for each, and links every bias and factual-reporting rating to its public source. The methodology is the product as much as the feature — here's exactly how it works.
What Sift reads
Around 50 outlets, hand-picked to balance the political spectrum (AllSides Left → Center → Right), span sector specialties (finance, tech, science, climate, health), and clear a factual-reporting bar. Each outlet has a dossier with ownership, funding model, and external rating links — click any name below.
Left (22)
Center (24)
Right (11)
Unrated or specialty (20)
Outlets without an AllSides rating are typically peer-reviewed scientific journals (Nature, Science) or sector specialists (Carbon Brief, STAT News) where political-lean isn't the relevant axis. MBFC factual-reporting ratings still apply.
What Sift excludes
Some categories of source never enter the pipeline:
- Aggregators (Google News, Yahoo News, MSN) — no original reporting.
- AI-content farms — synthetic articles without identifiable bylines.
- Outlets MBFC rates Low Factual or Very Low Factual — regardless of political lean.
- Sites without identifiable bylines, mastheads, or corrections policies.
- Crypto / health-supplement sites that brand themselves as news.
Where bias ratings come from
Sift surfaces AllSides' political-lean rating for each outlet. AllSides classifies outlets into six buckets — Left, Lean Left, Center, Lean Right, Right, Mixed — based on a methodology that combines blind bias surveys, editorial reviews, and reader feedback. Sift never computes its own bias rating; we cite AllSides verbatim with a link to the source page on every dossier.
AllSides — methodology and ratings (allsides.com)Where factual-reporting ratings come from
For factual reporting, Sift surfaces Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC) ratings on a six-tier scale — Very High, High, Mostly Factual, Mixed, Low, Very Low. MBFC's methodology weighs sourcing standards, fact-check track record, corrections policy, and frequency of false claims. Same rule as bias ratings: we cite verbatim, never compute our own, and link to MBFC for verification.
Media Bias/Fact Check — methodology (mediabiasfactcheck.com)Symmetric application
Every outlet gets the same treatment regardless of which side of the spectrum it sits on. Fox News and MSNBC are both shown with their AllSides ratings and MBFC factual-reporting tiers. National Review and The Nation get identical dossier shapes. Sift does not editorialize about which side is more or less reliable — that's the reader's call, with the data in front of them.
Refresh cadence
AllSides + MBFC ratings drift over time as outlets shift editorial direction, get acquired, or change sourcing standards. Sift hand-reviews every rating quarterly and stores a last-verified date alongside each one — it's the small mono caption under each rating on the dossier page. Outlet additions happen on demand when readers flag gaps; the inclusion criteria above are the only filter.
Suggest an addition or correction
If an outlet is missing, a rating looks stale, or anything in this methodology reads wrong, open an issue on GitHub or send a note. Sift is a portfolio project — corrections land fast.
kristenmartino/sift on GitHub