Blindspot Report
Week of August 11-17
The weekly Blindspot Report from Ground News puts a spotlight on news that publications from one side of the political spectrum or the other had little to no reporting on.
If your politics lean left, you likely didn't hear that thousands of USPS mailboxes were routinely removed during the Obama administration. And if your politics bend to the right, you probably didn’t hear that the Education Department has narrowed the scope of sexual assault complaints in universities.
This Week's Blindspots
Blindspot for the Left: Graphic video: Portland Rioters Viciously Beat Man Unconscious After He Crashes His Truck BLM supporters leave man bleeding from his head after assaulting his wife. Coverage Distribution: 21% Left Left 21% 8% Right 71%  
Blindspot for the Right: UNESCO vows to protect Lebanon's vulnerable heritage buildings at ‘risk collapse’ The effects of the blast were felt all over the Lebanese capital but some of the worst damage was in the Gemmayzeh and Mar-Mikhael neighbourhoods a short distance from the port. Coverage Distribution: 13% Right Left 63% 24% 13%  
Blindspot for the Left: Hashtag #wrongtrump trends on Twitter after death of president's brother Following the death of President Trump's brother Robert Trump, critics of the president have been tweeting the hashtag #wrongtrump, as if to say that it should have been the president to die instead. Coverage Distribution: 0% Left 17% Right 83%  
Blindspot for the Right: Watchdog: Homeland Security officials were wrongly appointed The two most senior officials in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security were improperly appointed to the posts under federal law by the Trump administration, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog said Friday. Coverage Distribution: 17% Right Left 44% Center 39% 17%  
Blindspot for the Left: Obama administration removed thousands of mailboxes during routine USPS operations President Trump has faced backlash over recent measures the U.S. Postal Service has taken to reduce service as November's election approaches, including removing mail collection boxes from street locations. But eliminating mailboxes is nothing new and took place quite a bit during the Obama administration. Coverage Distribution: 0% Left Right 100%  
Blindspot for the Right: Federal judge refuses to block campus sexual assault rules A federal judge on Wednesday allowed the Education Department to move forward with new rules governing how schools and universities respond to complaints of sexual assault.The rules, which take effect Friday, expand the rights of the accused, narrow the definition of sexual harassment and reduce the scope of cases that schools are required to investigate, among other changes. Coverage Distribution: 13% Right Left 53% Center 34% 13%  
Split Reporting
Highlighting discrepancies between the reporting on stories across different news outlets. This week's story:
Trump to pardon women’s suffrage leader Susan Anthony
What do the different news outlets focus on when reporting on this story?
USA Today:
Trump
honors 100th anniversary of 19th Amendement
by announcing pardon for Susan B. Anthony
Vice:
Trump Just Pardoned Susan B. Anthony,
Who Has Been Dead For 114 Years
Daily Wire:
Trump Pardons Susan B. Anthony
Over 1872 Arrest
Raw Story:
Trump’s pardon of Susan B. Anthony
met with laughter
on 100th anniversary of 19th Amendment
The New Yorker:
Susan B. Anthony Begs Trump Not to Pardon Her:
“I Don’t Want to Be on a Wikipedia Page with Roger Stone”
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Methodology
Ground News processes over 30,000 news articles each day. Articles from different news outlets covering the same news event are merged into a single story so subscribers can get all the perspectives in one view. Each article is labeled one of seven bias ratings (Far Left, Left, Leans Left, Center, Leans Right, Right, Far Right) based on the average bias rating of the publishing news outlet. All news outlet bias ratings are originally sourced from three non-profit news monitoring agencies (AllSides, Media Bias Fact Check, Ad Fontes Media).
The Blindspot Report is generated by evaluating the mean and standard deviation of the aggregate bias ratings of the week's top 100 (most covered and most read) stories. News stories with the greatest mean score (many more Right outlets than Left or vice versa) or the highest standard deviation of bias ratings (more coverage on fringes than Center) are selected for the Report.
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