Ad Fontes Does Us All a Great Service: Checking for Accuracy and Bias in the News

Ad Fontes Does Us All a Great Service:
Checking for Accuracy and Bias in the News

Find out everything you ever wanted to know about news sources, critical thinking, accuracy and more fact checking in the news from Ad Fontes‘ website (https://www.adfontesmedia.com/), including a great Media Bias Chart® showing the relative positions of each outlet regarding many factors (horizontal axis shows each one’s right, left, center-leanings; the other axis runs from top to bottom, all facts to complete lies and fiction).

“Ad Fontes Media, Inc. is a company founded in 2018 by Vanessa Otero, creator of the Media Bias Chart®. The mission of Ad Fontes Media is ‘to make news consumers smarter and news media better.’

“We rate the news for reliability and bias to help people navigate the news landscape. Ad Fontes is Latin for ‘to the source,’ because at the heart of what Ad Fontes Media does is look at the source—analyze the very content itself—to rate it. We have created a system of news content ratings that has beneficial applications for all stakeholders in a healthy news media landscape, including consumers, educators, publishers, researchers, advertisers, and social media platforms.

“Ad Fontes Media is incorporated as a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC)[1] in Colorado. The stated public benefit of Ad Fontes Media is the same as its mission.

“Ad Fontes is currently funded by its founder, by a crowdfunding campaign which ran in late 2018, by sales of licenses, prints, commercial data and software products, commercial content rating services, educational products, and consumer memberships, by donations through this site (not tax-deductible) by individuals who believe in its mission, and by funds raised via an equity crowdfunding investment round in 2020-2021. Any future additional sources of funding will be disclosed on this site and in future annual reports.

“Funding for Ad Fontes Media is currently used to fund 1) ongoing analysis of new and existing news sources by our team of analysts, and 2) the continued development of software and technology for improving the Media Bias Chart.

“[1] The difference between a PBC and a regular C-corporation is that a PBC’s shareholders are required to consider the stated public benefit of the corporation in addition to the financial interests of the stakeholders when making business decisions. This is a formation option that has recently become available to companies in most states. A PBC can receive grants and donations, but those are not tax-deductible. It can also sell shares like a C-Corporation. This information about PBCs is not tax or legal advice.”

They do need funding, so they charge for swag, courses, their SUMMA News Literacy Curriculum, and memberships, and to download their frequently-updated Media Bias Chart, but online viewing is free: