Masquerading as the latest in news dissemination via aggregation, the “Big Four News Apps” (Apple News, Google News, Microsoft’s MSN and Yahoo News) are little more than a mouthpiece trumpeting the elitist media narrative. MRC analysis of our Digital News Tracker data shows why.
Throughout the first five months of MRC-collected data, the Big Four News Apps promoted a whopping 7,265 articles from left-leaning outlets out of a total 10,338 articles from AllSides-rated outlets in their morning editions. That means the Big Four News Apps promoted leftist sources 70% of the time. Compare that gaudy figure to the paltry 539 articles (5%) from right-leaning outlets, and the overt bias of the Big Four News Apps becomes abundantly clear.
The macro view is bad enough, but zooming in on each individual news aggregator enables the observer to unpack the intricacies of how the Big Four News Apps gatekeep news and information in a new era of media bias and censorship.
MRC’s Findings of the Big Four News Apps’ Top 20 Morning Editions from Nov. 1, 2025 - March 31, 2026:
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The Big Four News Apps overwhelmingly favor leftist, elitist media sources. Apple News, Google News, Microsoft’s MSN and Yahoo News pushed a combined 7,265 articles (70%) from left-leaning outlets out of a total 10,338 articles, compared to only 539 articles (5%) from right-leaning outlets.
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So far, April doesn’t look much better. The Big Four News Apps promoted 799 articles (65%) from left-leaning outlets out of a total of 1,222 articles from April 1 - April 18, 2026. Meanwhile, the news aggregators promoted a paltry 72 articles (6%) from right-leaning outlets during the same period.
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Apple News was the most radical, anti-conservative news aggregator of the bunch. It only promoted 14 total stories (less than 0.5%) from right-leaning outlets during the period. Meanwhile, it pushed 2,058 articles from left-leaning outlets out of 2,825 total articles. That’s nearly 73% from left-leaning outlets alone.
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Google News punished right-leaning media almost as much as Apple News. The tech giant only allowed 54 articles (2%) from right-leaning outlets, while pushing 1,783 articles (nearly 70%) from leftist outlets out of a total of 2,567 articles.
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Microsoft’s MSN was the least bad news aggregator. It has promoted 1,303 articles (52%) from leftist sources out of 2,503. It topped the list for "center" (930) and right-leaning stories (270 or approximately 11%).
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Yahoo News had the most imbalanced coverage favoring leftist outlets, and it relied on articles from some of the most radical outlets. The bipolar news aggregator promoted 2,121 stories (nearly 87%) from left-leaning outlets, while only promoting 201 stories (8%) from right-leaning outlets. It nearly left stories from “center” outlets out—only promoting 121 total stories (less than 5%). In doing so, it relied heavily on articles from two radical leftist outlets: Salon (205) and The New Republic (108).
“MRC’s latest data exposes a glaring bias from the Big Four News Apps. Apple News, Google News, Microsoft’s MSN, and Yahoo News are blatantly tipping the scales in favor of the elitist media, who we all know have a left-wing bias,” said Media Research Center President David Bozell. “An overwhelming 70% of their top stories come from left-leaning outlets, while right-leaning points of view are barely heard, at just 5%. This shocking neglect of conservative perspectives is a deliberate marginalization that stifles diversity of thought and hinders informed discourse, making it the true threat to our democracy."
Americans have lost confidence in the media, with Pew Research Center data showing a majority of U.S. adults (57%) have expressed low confidence in journalists to act in the best interest of the public, including “40% who say they have not too much confidence and 17% who say they have none at all.”
But the Big Four News Apps collectively receive over 550 million monthly views, Google News with roughly 93 million, Apple News with approximately 125 million, Microsoft’s MSN with about 150 million and Yahoo with a little over 200 million. What’s more, three of the four major news aggregators come preloaded on digital devices—Apple News on iPhones, Google News on Android phones, and Microsoft's MSN on computers. Combine that with the fact that 86% of U.S. adults say they get their news from a digital source at least sometimes, the bias and censorship issues posed by tech giants cannot be overstated.
The Big Four News Apps Overwhelmingly Favor Leftist, Elitist Media Outlets
The first five months of MRC-collected data make the Big Four News Apps’ slant in favor of the left abundantly clear with 70% of the articles promoted across Apple News, Google News, Microsoft’s MSN and Yahoo News coming from left-leaning outlets and only 5% from right-leaning outlets.
MRC has repeatedly documented the leftist bias of the Big Four News Apps.
For example, the elitist media ignored, and their Big Tech partners hid President Donald Trump’s top priority, the SAVE America Act, despite bipartisan popularity. But that’s not all. Between November and March, the Big Tech news aggregators suppressed news about embattled Democrats in the lead-up to the 2025 elections, and then further shielded the Democrats amid “fraud” allegations in Minnesota and California.
The Big Four News Apps also did their utmost to promote slanted coverage on ICE, federal immigration enforcement actions and their resulting political implications, like former CNN host-turned-YouTuber Don Lemon’s grand jury indictment and the Democrats’ partial government shutdown. The Big Four News Apps even ignored Sheridan Gorman’s murder while amplifying anti-ICE stories.
The same news aggregators made clear their preference regarding life as well, ignoring reporting on the 53rd March for Life and burying New York Post columnist Miranda Devin’s bombshell exposé on how the FBI botched the probe of would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks.
Below are the top 10 AllSides-rated national and international outlets the Big Four News Apps pushed from Nov. 3, 2025 - March 31, 2026:
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Yahoo News (897) - Left-leaning
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The Washington Post (479) - Left-leaning
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Newsweek (478) - Mixed
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NBC News online (461) - Left-leaning
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The New York Times (450) Left-Leaning
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Business Insider (429) - Left-leaning
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Fox News (426) - Right-leaning
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CNN (419) - Left-leaning
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USA Today (391) - Left-leaning
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Reuters (356) - Center
Missing almost entirely from the Big Four News Apps were articles from right-leaning outlets not named Fox News. Fox News is the number one cable news channel in the U.S., but there are dozens of right-leaning outlets with talented reporters and cutting-edge investigative journalists.
The Big Four News Apps did include at least one article from the following AllSides-rated right-leaning outlets (but never more than five): Catholic News Agency (1), National Review (2), OutKick (1), The Bulwark (5), The Telegraph (4), The Washington Times (1) and The Western Journal (1). Meanwhile, the Big Four News Apps gave short shrift to stories from two of Press Gazette’s list of the top 50 biggest websites, like the New York Post (10) and Daily Mail (2), while completely omitting stories from three others: Breitbart (0), The Gateway Pundit (0) and Newsmax (0). But that only just scratches the surface. Many other right-leaning outlets were altogether denied inclusion in the top 20 morning editions of the Big Four News Apps each day.
The Big Four News Apps Are Doing Much of the Same in April
The Big Four News Apps’ imbalance in favor of the left does not look much better in April. Thus far this month, a majority (65%) of the articles they have promoted have come from left-leaning outlets, while only 6% of the articles have come from right-leaning outlets.
As of April 18, a new leader has emerged among the outlets with the most articles shared by the Big Four News Apps. That title belongs to AllSides-rated “center” outlet BBC. BBC weighs in with 99; followed by left-leaning Yahoo News with 82; left-leaning NBC News with 61; right-leaning Fox News with 60; left-leaning The Associated Press with 53; left-leaning CNN with 50; left-leaning The New York Times with 49 and, finally, rounding out the top 10 for roughly the first half of the month are three outlets: left-leaning CBS News with 48, center-rated The Wall Street Journal with 48 and left-leaning The Washington Post with 48.
Apple News — Most Radical, Anti-Conservative News Aggregator
Starting with the worst, Apple News has shown itself to be the most radical, anti-conservative news aggregator in the bunch.
Apple News pushed by far the fewest articles from right-leaning outlets—only 14 total stories (less than half of a percent). The lion’s share of articles that the digital news gatekeeper promoted were from left-leaning outlets (2,058 out of 2,825 articles from AllSides-rated outlets). That’s nearly three-fourths of the articles it promoted over the period, or 73%.
The news aggregator has consistently limited conservative perspectives since MRC began monitoring the news app. Apple News completely blanked right-leaning outlets during the months of December 2025 and January 2026, and even went so far as to silence right-leaning outlets for 99 straight days in its morning editions.
It took 100 days, from Nov. 6, 2025 through Feb. 13, 2026, for Apple News to highlight a single story from a right-leaning outlet compared to 1,379 stories from left-leaning outlets during the same period. Tellingly, the Fox News story Apple News featured (an obituary for the actor James Van Der Beek) steered clear of politics completely and came only after Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson wrote a “warning” letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook in response to bombshell reports by the Media Research Center. Naturally, Apple News and its competitors chose to go silent on the FTC’s rebuke of Apple.
Apple News knows how to neglect diversity of opinion on the issues too. In early February, the digital news gatekeeper omitted articles from right-leaning outlets entirely in its coverage of immigration, promoting 57 articles from left-leaning outlets like The Associated Press, The Washington Post, NBC News, NPR and others.
Apple News distinguishes itself further by bragging that it uses human curators to highlight stories users see in its feeds. According to The New York Times, Apple prefers the “benefits” of a human touch: “‘We are responsible for what’s in there,’ Roger Rosner, Apple’s chief of apps and Ms. Kern’s boss, said about Apple News. ‘We’re not just going to let it be a total crazy land.’”
It also offers an altogether inadequate and biased subscription service called Apple News+. MRC analysis of its offerings showed an unmistakable bias in favor of the left. At the time of the analysis, Apple provided 51 left-leaning outlets to only three right-leaning outlets.
Several interesting tidbits of information stuck out during the five-month period. Notably, Apple News favors promoting articles from five outlets more than all the others. Among them, The Washington Post, Reuters, NBC News and The Wall Street Journal all topped 200 stories during the period. The Associated Press rounds out the top five, and while it did not make the top four, it made the biggest leap during the period, climbing from zero articles featured in November to 62 in the month of March alone. Apple News similarly started off cold toward The New York Times—only promoting it 14 times in November and 19 in December—but it has warmed to the progressive, leftist outlet in recent months, promoting it 30, 43 and 29 times in January, February and March respectively.
Below are the top 10 AllSides-rated national and international outlets Apple News pushed from Nov. 3, 2025 - March 31, 2026:
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The Washington Post (295) - Left-leaning
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Reuters (246) - Center
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NBC News online (245) - Left-leaning
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The Wall Street Journal (245) - Center
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The Associated Press (190) - Left-leaning
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Apple (144) - Left-leaning
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National Public Radio (NPR) (143) - Left-leaning
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The New York Times (135) - Left-leaning
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The Guardian (129) - Left-leaning
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CBS News online (100) - Left-leaning
Google News — Punishes the Right Almost as Much as Apple News
While Google News isn’t the worst, it’s nipping at Apple News’s heels. For now, it’ll have to settle for the first loser in a race to the bottom of the bad media well.
Google News followed closely in Apple’s footsteps in suppressing conservative perspectives, though it allowed slightly more articles from right-leaning outlets (54) to slip through the cracks. Meanwhile, the tech giant pushed 1,783 articles from leftist outlets out of a total of 2,567 articles from AllSides-rated outlets. In other words, 69% of the stories Google News pushed came from left-leaning outlets.
In addition to favoring The New York Times far more than any other outlet, further analysis of the data reveal that Google News has a penchant for promoting government-funded media.
And it matters what Google favors. In the month of March alone, Google News increased its promotion of Al Jazeera by 250%, which coincided with a massive 143% increase in online views for the Qatari-backed publication. Google propped up other government-tied outlets like NPR, PBS, the UK’s BBC and Germany’s DW.
Take BBC, for instance: Google News boosted the British-funded online outlet 145 times in the top 20 during the mornings over five months (Nov. 1, 2025 - March 31, 2026). Strikingly, BBC named former Google executive Matt Brittin its new director general, according to BBC on March 25. Coincidence? Perhaps not.
Google News also made its anti-conservative bias evident by steering viewers clear of articles from the right on important American policy issues.
For example, Google News blockaded reports on the Minnesota fraud explosion, promoting only four articles out of 840 in its top morning editions. It also silenced the right when it came to promoting reporting on ICE. And instead of providing coverage of a scandal involving Democrat Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (FL), indicted for allegedly stealing millions in taxpayer dollars from FEMA grants, Google chose to spotlight The New York Times “Spelling Bee,” a play on words highlighting one of The Times’ online puzzle games.
Google News took the opposite approach of Apple News when it comes to how it chooses what news to show its viewers. It sets itself apart by hiding behind its algorithm. On its “How news works on Google” page, the tech giant claims, “Google’s automated systems, called algorithms, analyze hundreds of different factors to identify and organize the stories being covered around the world. In some cases, we may highlight designated topical experiences, but our primary approach is to use technology to reflect the news landscape, and leave editorial decisions to publishers.”
Below are the top 10 AllSides-rated national and international outlets Google News pushed from Nov. 1, 2025 - March 31, 2026:
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The New York Times (315) - Left-leaning
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CNN online (195) - Left-leaning
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BBC online (145) - Center
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The Guardian (126) - Left-leaning
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National Public Radio (NPR) (107) - Left-leaning
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CBS News online (104) - Left-leaning
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The Washington Post (100) - Left-leaning
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NBC News online (81) - Left-leaning
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Politico (81) - Left-leaning
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The Associated Press (76) - Left-leaning
Microsoft’s MSN — The Least Bad News Aggregator So Far
If Microsoft’s MSN can claim any clout from the data MRC has analyzed so far, it can revel in being the least bad of the digital news gatekeepers—like the only writhing worm in a bowl of dead maggots.
Despite promoting the fewest stories from left-leaning outlets among the Big Four News Apps, Microsoft's MSN remains far from commendable. A disconcerting majority—52%, or 1,303—of its promoted stories are still from leftist sources. Even though it topped the list for AllSides-rated "center" (930) and right-leaning (270) stories, its feigned attempt at balance is not an achievement worthy of praise.
Microsoft’s MSN also singlehandedly props up Newsweek, with over 80 placements in the top 20 each month.
Much like the other Big Four News Apps, Microsoft’s MSN almost exclusively relied on Fox properties (Fox News & Fox Business), censoring nearly every other right-leaning outlet with few exceptions. The digital news gatekeeper allowed only two additional stories from two separate right-leaning outlets (National Review and The Western Journal) to appear in its top 20 morning editions during the period.
There are six right-leaning news outlets in the top 50 most read in the U.S., according to Press Gazette. MSN showed articles from only one, censoring articles from the others: New York Post, Daily Mail, Breitbart News, The Gateway Pundit and Newsmax, respectively. There are, of course, dozens of other right-leaning outlets ignored by MSN, outlets with reach that exceed several of the outlets promoted by the tech giant.
MRC researchers analyzed MSN’s list of “recommended publishers” and found rank bias favoring the left that might even make a cynic blush. Of the MSN-recommended media sites, 15 were leftist outlets — like The Atlantic, Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire — and only two were right-leaning outlets, Fox News and the Washington Examiner.
Below are the top 10 AllSides-rated national and international outlets Microsoft’s MSN pushed from Nov. 1, 2025 - March 31, 2026:
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Newsweek (478) - Center
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USA Today (206) - Left-leaning
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Fox News (183) - Right-leaning
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CNN online (140) - Left-leaning
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ABC News online (138) - Left-leaning
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HuffPost (93) - Left
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CBS News online (79) - Left-leaning
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Fortune (72) - Center
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NBC News online (71) - Left-leaning
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Business Insider (68) - Left-leaning
Yahoo News — Most Radical in Outlet Selection So Far
Pushing nearly as many articles from left-leaning outlets as Apple News, Yahoo News has relied heavily on some of the most radical leftist outlets.
Yahoo News is the most bipolar news aggregator, nearly leaving articles from AllSides-rated “center” outlets out of the mix—only promoting 121 stories (less than 5%). It promoted 2,121 stories (nearly 87%) from left-leaning outlets, while only promoting 201 stories (8%) from right-leaning outlets.
Chief among the leftist outlets Yahoo News served up to its viewers was none other than Yahoo News. It consistently promoted its own work over 130 times in the top 20 of its morning editions throughout each month. Conversely, apparently falling out of Yahoo News’s favor was left-leaning Business Insider. Yahoo News relied heavily on the left-leaning outlet in November (149 articles) and December (139 articles), but Business Insider fell precipitously thereafter. In March, Yahoo News only promoted articles from Business Insider only five times.
But Yahoo News didn’t ditch leftist content. The digital news gatekeeper consistently promoted articles from radical leftist outlets like Salon and The New Republic, both of which find themselves inside Yahoo News’s top 10.
Yahoo News also appears to play a shell game to boost overwhelmingly leftist media content. Providing what appears to be a veneer of balance, the digital news gatekeeper frequently buries what little right-leaning coverage it offers. Further still, when the news aggregator did offer an article from a right-leaning outlet, it often featured human-interest headlines.
Due to its stark imbalance of coverage, Yahoo News pushed the highest percentage of stories (nearly 87%) from left-leaning outlets out of all the Big Four News Apps: Apple News (73%), Google News (69%) and Microsoft’s MSN (52%).
Below are the top 10 AllSides-rated national and international outlets Yahoo News pushed from Nov. 1, 2025 - March 31, 2026:
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Yahoo (879) - Left-leaning
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Business Insider (349) - Left-leaning
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Salon (205) - Left-leaning
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Fox News online (198) - Right-leaning
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The New Republic (108) - Left-leaning
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USA Today (85) - Left-leaning
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Yahoo Finance (81) - Left-leaning
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CNN online (72) - Left-leaning
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CBS News online (71) - Left-leaning
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NBC News online (64) - Left-leaning
Methodology: MRC researchers examined the top 20 stories featured on Apple News, Google News, Microsoft’s MSN and Yahoo News each day in the mornings at approximately 10:00 AM ET from Nov. 1, 2025 - Jan. 11, 2026 and at approximately 8:30 AM ET from Jan. 12 - March, 31, 2026. MRC does not have data for Apple News on Nov. 1 - Nov. 2, 2025, and it does not have data for Google News on Dec. 2, 2025. MRC researchers used the AllSides media bias ratings, which categorize an outlet as “left,” “lean left,” “center,” “lean right” or “right” to determine the overall bias presented by the Big Four News Apps and analyzed the results.
