Who Funds the News?

Why It's More Helpful to Look at Who Funds Media and Think Tanks (Than Just Relying on Ground News)

It’s great that you’re exploring tools like Ground News to understand media bias, and it’s an app I have used in the past. The app is a useful step in becoming a more informed and critical news reader. Ground News does a nice job of showing how different media outlets frame the same story from the political left, centre, or right. But while this helps you spot bias, I am more frequently finding it doesn’t always show me the full picture of what influences that bias, particularly who is behind the scenes funding the content.

I am keen to share some thoughts for exploration with you on why digging into media and think tank funding is often more revealing than relying on bias indicators alone.

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Ground News shows the “what,” but not the “why”

Ground News helps you compare how stories are reported across the political spectrum. You might see how a left-leaning outlet covers immigration very differently from a right-leaning one. But Ground News doesn’t tell you why that outlet might lean that way, or who benefits from those narratives being pushed (Ground News, 2025).

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