Blindspot Report
Week of September 8-15
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 right, you likely didn't hear that the federal government has been siphoning funds from the FDNY 9/11 health program. And if your politics bend to the left, you probably didn’t hear that Russia has developed a nuclear-powered missile which could 'circle the globe for years'.
Something new we'd like to unveil this week: 
New BETA: Ground News Bias Checker extension We at Ground News bring you the Blindspot Report, our iPhone, iPad, Android apps and our web.ground.news website but we recognize that most politically-biased news spreads through social media. We have been busy working on a solution to flag biased news directly on social media and our new Chrome extension does just that. Simply browse news on the web or on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit or Linkedin and we'll show you when a news story in your feed has received balanced or biased coverage. Here is a 48 second demo video
This Week's Blindspots
Blindspot for the Right: Trump administration secretly withheld millions from FDNY 9/11 health program The Federal government has secretly siphoned nearly $4 million away from a program that tracks and treats FDNY firefighters and medics suffering from 9/11 related illnesses, the New York Daily News reported on Thursday. The U.S. Treasury says the money was diverted because of “delinquent debt” owed by New York City to the federal government. Coverage Distribution: 12% Right Left 73% 15% 12%  
Blindspot for the Left: “Rogue” Chinese Virologist Joins Twitter, Publishes “Smoking Gun” Evidence COVID-19 Created In Lab A Chinese virologist who has alleged that COVID-19 was human-made in a lab in China released a report on Monday that she says backs up her explosive claim. She told a U.K. broadcast this weekend that she is certain the Chinese coronavirus “is not from nature” but, rather, artificially engineered at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). Coverage Distribution: 10% Left 10 Right 90%  
Blindspot for the Right: Whistleblower complaint charges ICE center with performing mass hysterectomies on prisoners Advocacy groups filed a complaint on Monday on behalf of a whistleblower who was a nurse at a Georgia detention center housing ICE detainees. “These immigrant women, I don’t think they really, totally, all the way understand this is what’s going to happen depending on who explains it to them,” said the nurse. She also alleged that one doctor removed the wrong ovary from a young detainee and that "everybody he sees has a hysterectomy". Coverage Distribution: 13% Right Left 61% Center 26% 13%  
Blindspot for the Left: Russia has nuclear-powered cruise missile which could 'circle the globe for years' The UK's Chief of Defence Intelligence told a media briefing that “Moscow is testing a subsonic nuclear-powered cruise missile system which has global reach and would allow attack from unexpected directions”. He also highlighted Russia’s major investment in submarines and capabilities such as “an unmanned underwater vehicle capable of delivering a nuclear payload to coastal targets or even carrier groups at sea”. Coverage Distribution: 13% Left 13% Center 24% Right 63%  
Blindspot for the Right: Climate change: Warmth shatters section of Greenland ice shelf A chunk of ice, the size of the city of Paris, has broken away from the Arctic's largest remaining ice shelf - 79N, or Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden. An increasingly warm climate has resulted in the gradual disintegration of the Spalte Glacier in northeast Greenland. Coverage Distribution: 15% Right Left 44% Center 41% 15% 
Blindspot for the Left: Lawyer says Julian Assange should not be extradited to U.S. — because of what happened to Jeffrey Epstein U.S. lawyer Eric Lewis said in video evidence Monday that Epstein’s suicide at a jail in Manhattan indicates it would be unsafe for Assange, 49, to be sent to America. Assange is wanted by the U.S. on charges that he endangered national security by conspiring to obtain and disclose classified information. He has an “array of mental health problems” that make him particularly vulnerable if he were extradited, Lewis said. Coverage Distribution: 13% Left 13% Center 24% Right 63%  
Something new we'd like to recommend this week: 
BridgeUSA: Investing in the Future of Democracy In a time when politics is so polarized and solutions seem few and far between, BridgeUSA is developing the next generation of engaged, informed, and constructive citizens that value viewpoint diversity and empathy. On college campuses across the country, BridgeUSA empowers young leaders to become problem solvers for the future through civic engagement and community building.
Split Reporting
Highlighting discrepancies between the reporting on stories across different news outlets. This week's story:
Trump told Woodward he wanted to "play it down" with Covid-19
What do the different news outlets focus on when reporting on this story?
People:
Trump Is Recorded Saying Coronavirus Is
'Deadly Stuff'
Even as He Publicly Downplayed It
Raw Story:
Trump told Bob Woodward COVID-19 was
‘deadly stuff’
— then spent weeks
downplaying it publicly
VOA News:
Trump
Knew of COVID Danger but Downplayed It
, Book Recounts
Welt:
Trump downplayed corona risk
to keep the population calm
National Review:
‘I Always Wanted to Play It Down’: Trump Admits to Understating COVID Threat
to Avoid Creating ‘Panic’
CBN News:
Trump 'Played Down' Pandemic, Washington Post Claims, but Audio Reveals He Was Trying
to Avoid 'a Panic'
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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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