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Israeli media bias, seen on the story itself.

A bias chart tells you where somebody filed a newsroom. Putting one event next to every outlet that covered it tells you what actually happened that day. baba News does the second thing, in English, across 58 Israeli newsrooms.

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How Do I See Bias on an Israeli News Story?

Compare the wording. The same event, reported by Ynet, N12, Israel Hayom and Haaretz, produces four headlines that are not the same headline, and the differences between them are the most direct evidence of a slant that exists. Add which outlets ran it at all, which press sides ignored it, and who filed first, and you have the shape of the coverage rather than somebody’s opinion of the coverage.

That is what baba News is built to show. It reads 58 Israeli newsrooms in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, French and English, groups every report about one event into a single story, and puts the headlines side by side in English.

What You Get Instead of a Score

Four things, all of them checkable against the original articles.

One event, every newsroom

A story arrives as a cluster: every outlet that filed on it, each with its own headline rendered in English. The difference between two headlines is the most direct evidence of a slant there is.

The split, counted

How many left, center and right newsrooms ran it, and which press sides did not run it at all. A story carried by one side and nobody else is visible as exactly that.

Who moved first

The filing timeline: which newsroom published first and how long the others took. A story that took one side six hours to notice is a different story from one everybody ran at once.

Ownership on the record

Who owns each outlet and how it is funded, recorded for every newsroom on the wire, so you can weigh the source without taking a score on faith.

Why There Is No Factuality Score Here

A licensed reliability number compresses a newsroom into a digit and asks you to trust the compression. baba News does not publish one. Every newsroom profile records what can be checked instead: who owns it, how it is funded, when it started, and its measured behaviour on the wire, such as how quickly it files compared with the rest of the press.

The left, center and right placement exists for one job: comparing coverage of the same event. Of the 18 newsrooms profiled here, 9 sit in the center, 5 on the right, 1 on the left, and 3 are unrated because they are business outlets that the scale does not describe.

How the Israeli Press Splits

The five groups baba News compares, what sits in each, and the outlets outside them.

GroupNewsroomsWhat to know
LeftHaaretz, Davar, Local CallHaaretz is the largest, founded 1918, with the strongest English edition of any Hebrew paper.
CenterYnet, N12, Kan, Channel 13, Walla, Maariv, The Times of Israel, The Jerusalem PostThe high-volume mainstream: the two commercial TV newsrooms, the public broadcaster, the big portals and the English-language dailies.
RightIsrael Hayom, Now 14, 0404, Mida, Arutz Sheva, Srugim, Makor Rishon, KipaIncludes the religious-Zionist press. Israel Hayom is the most widely read print paper, distributed free; Arutz Sheva runs Israel National News in English.
HarediKikar HaShabbat, Behadrei Haredim, JDNA group of its own, in Hebrew only. Stories here often appear nowhere else in the press.
ArabArab48, Panet, Al-Arab, Makan, Al-ShamsA group of its own: the Arabic-language press written for Arab citizens of Israel, which a left-to-right bar does not describe.
Other outletsVesty, NEWSru Israel, Mignews, Cursorinfo, Channel 9, Globes, Calcalist, TheMarker, Bizportal, Sport5, Abu Ali Express, ShakufThe Russian-language, business and sports press, listed beside the groups but never counted as a side that skipped a story, because they cover a language or a beat. Abu Ali Express and Shakuf sit here too, because the evidence does not place them. Business outlets are unrated on the left-to-right scale.

Each one has a profile with ownership, funding and language: all Israeli newsrooms.

The Gap Is the Story

The most useful thing a comparison shows is not how two newsrooms worded an event. It is an event one side of the press covered heavily and another did not touch. baba News calls those Not Everywhere stories and names the side that stayed quiet: see the coverage gaps.

Frequently Asked Questions

Every newsroom, with its owner
How do I see media bias on an Israeli news story?

Compare how different newsrooms worded the same event. baba News groups every Israeli outlet that covered a story into one cluster, shows each newsroom’s own headline in English, counts how many left, center and right outlets ran it, and names the press sides that did not run it at all. That comparison is the evidence; a single bias score is not.

Is there an Israeli media bias chart?

baba News places every newsroom on a left, center or right position and in one of five groups of the press: left, center, right, the Haredi press or the Arab press, with the Russian-language, business and sports outlets listed outside them. That placement is for comparing coverage of one event, not a rating of accuracy or trustworthiness. The full register of all 58 newsrooms is published, with ownership and funding for each.

Is Haaretz left wing? Is Israel Hayom right wing?

baba News places Haaretz on the left of the Israeli press and Israel Hayom on the right. Both are large, established newsrooms: Haaretz was founded in 1918 and is funded by subscriptions and advertising, Israel Hayom was founded in 2007 and is a privately funded free daily. What the placement is for is comparison, so you can see what each ran on a given day and how each worded it.

Does baba News score newsrooms for factuality?

No, and that is deliberate. A licensed factuality number is something a reader has to take on faith. baba News publishes what is checkable instead: ownership, funding, which outlets ran a story, which did not, how each worded it, and how fast each filed.

Why does the left-to-right scale not cover every Israeli newsroom?

Because it does not describe all of them. The Haredi press and the Arab press each run an agenda of their own, and calling a Haredi daily "center-right" says nothing useful, so baba News carries them as groups of their own beside left, center and right. The religious-Zionist press sits with the right. The Russian-language, business and sports outlets cover a language or a beat: they are listed beside the groups rather than in one, and business outlets are left unrated on the scale.

Can I see what one side of the press did not cover?

Yes. That is what Not Everywhere does: it surfaces stories that ran widely on one side of the Israeli press and not at all on another, and names the side that stayed quiet.

Compare the Israeli press yourself.

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