Ground news
Executive summary
Ground News is a Canadian news-aggregation platform that aims to expose media bias by labeling outlets with aggregated bias and factuality ratings drawn from third-party monitors and by presenting multiple perspectives on a single story [1] [2]. Independent reviewers and guides generally describe it as useful for spotting blindspots and comparing coverage, while also warning that Ground News does not fact-check individual articles and that its use of lower-quality source outlets can pull down its "mostly factual" assessments [3] [4].
1. What Ground News is and how it works
Ground News aggregates headlines and full articles from a broad range of publishers and displays bias and factuality metadata calculated by averaging ratings from AllSides, Ad Fontes Media, and Media Bias/Fact Check, with additional features such as a Blindspot feed, comparison tools and a browser extension to surface other outlets’ coverage of the same story [1] [5] [6].
2. The core ratings: bias and factuality — methodology and limits
The platform’s Factuality Score is explicitly an aggregate measure of a publication’s reporting practices — derived from Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias/Fact Check — intended to indicate reliability at a glance rather than to adjudicate every article’s accuracy [7] [1]; users and academic critics note Ground News rates outlets, not individual pieces, and therefore does not perform article-level fact checks in real time [3].
3. What independent assessments say about credibility
Media Bias/Fact Check’s profile of Ground News calls it "Least Biased" overall but "mostly factual rather than High" because Ground News republishes items from some sources with poor fact-check records, a nuance that MFBC argues can lower an aggregate factuality classification [4]; other reviewers and guides similarly advise that Ground News is a useful comparative tool but not infallible and that users should still cross-check reporting [8] [9].
4. Strengths: transparency and blindspot detection
Ground News is widely praised for visualizing how different outlets cover the same event — its Blindspot reports and side-by-side comparison tools are designed to reveal undercovered angles and to reduce partisan blind spots, a feature that has drawn positive attention from educators and some scholars studying polarization [6] [5].
5. Weaknesses and critiques: aggregation, paywalls, and source quality
Critics highlighted by Columbia Journalism Review and other reviewers point to the platform’s automated aggregation, paywalled factuality details, and reliance on external rating bodies as potential weaknesses; Ground News’ inclusion of stories from fringe outlets (e.g., sites with histories of misinformation) can drag down its "mostly factual" label and requires users to be vigilant about source provenance [6] [4] [7].
6. Business model and transparency about ratings
Ground News describes its bias and factuality labels publicly and attributes them to the three monitoring organizations; some features (more granular factuality labels, ownership data) are behind premium tiers while the basic bias labels and comparison functions remain available, a tradeoff discussed in app reviews and the company’s about materials [1] [10].
7. Practical takeaway for news consumers
Ground News is a powerful heuristic tool for quickly comparing how outlets across the spectrum cover a story and for spotting blindspots, but it is not a substitute for article-level fact-checking: the platform’s strengths lie in aggregation and metadata, and its weaknesses stem from automated aggregation and inclusion of lower-quality sources, so confirmation with primary reporting and fact-checkers remains necessary [2] [3] [4].