Mapping Media Bias: How AI Powers the Computational Social Science Lab’s Media Bias Detector

Fact versus opinion road sign. — The CSSLab’s Media Bias Detector empowers users to analyze bias in major news outlets, not just based on their political leaning, but on the topics they choose to cover. (Maria Vonotna via Getty Images)

Every day, American news outlets collectively publish thousands of articles. In 2016, according to The Atlantic, The Washington Post published 500 pieces of content per day; The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal more than 200. “We’re all consumers of the media,” says Duncan Watts, Stevens University Professor in Computer and Information Science. “We’re all influenced by what we consume there, and by what we do not consume there.”

Today, the Computational Social Science Lab (CSSLab), which Watts founded and leads, launched the Media Bias Detector, providing media consumers an unprecedented level of detail in understanding how news outlets from across the ideological spectrum stack up against one another on topics as varied as the presidential race, social media and climate change.