What about the other groups such as ABC, CBS etc?
Executive summary
Major broadcast outlets such as ABC and CBS are not monolithic; independent ratings and academic studies place them across the center-left to centrist spectrum depending on methodology, time period and which part of the organization is measured (website vs. broadcast) [1] [2] [3]. Evaluations differ because rating systems use different samples, scopes and definitions of bias and reliability—so the answer to “What about the other groups such as ABC, CBS etc.?” is: it depends on who is measuring and what they measured [4].
1. ABC: consistently labeled center-left by fact‑check aggregators but shown slightly critical of Republicans in empirical work
ABC News is rated Left‑Center by Media Bias/Fact Check, which cites story selection and word choices that moderately favor the left while giving ABC high marks for factual reporting and sourcing [1]. Independent empirical research using large samples of newscasts from 2001–2012 likewise finds ABC among the network newscasts that tend to be slightly more critical of Republicans than Democrats, a pattern shared with CBS and NBC in that study [5]. These two different approaches—qualitative rating of story selection and large‑scale tonality analysis—converge on a modest leftward tilt for ABC, though both sources also highlight ABC’s generally solid factual track record [1] [5].
2. CBS: mixed assessments—center by some, left by others, right‑shift claims amid leadership changes
CBS’s placement varies across evaluators: Ad Fontes classifies CBS News (website) in the Middle for bias and Reliable for analysis and fact reporting [2], while Media Bias/Fact Check has in recent updates flagged a Right‑Center tilt and lowered its factuality rating, attributing the change to emerging editorial decisions and the influence of new leadership such as Bari Weiss [6]. Aggregators that average multiple ratings place CBS near center (Ground News) and other methods like AllSides rate it as leaning left [7] [8]. The scholarly record previously found left‑leaning tendencies in CBS evening newscasts across certain eras, but again results depend on time range and measurement technique [3].
3. Why assessments diverge: methodology, unit of analysis and institutional changes matter
Different evaluators use different units of analysis—website articles versus flagship newscasts, single stories versus aggregate tonality—and different scoring systems, which produces divergent conclusions [4] [2]. Academic studies that code hundreds of thousands of items focus on tonality over time, detecting systematic tendencies such as networks being more critical of the sitting president regardless of party, while media‑bias sites often synthesize editorial choices, donations, or perceived word‑choice patterns into categorical labels [5] [9]. Recent personnel and editorial shifts—cited by Media Bias/Fact Check in its reassessment of CBS—illustrate how ownership or leadership changes can alter ratings even if legacy reporting practices remain strong [6] [2].
4. A balanced takeaway: nuance over caricature
The best reading of the evidence is that ABC, CBS and their broadcast peers sit near the center to center‑left on average, with measurable tendencies to scrutinize Republican officeholders more aggressively in many study periods, yet each outlet contains variation across shows, platforms and time [5] [3] [2]. Aggregators and scholars reach different conclusions because they answer different questions: “Is the outlet reliably factual?” (Ad Fontes, MBFC factuality scores) versus “Does editorial selection favor one side?” (MBFC, AllSides) versus “What is the aggregate tonal balance over a decade?” (academic work) [2] [6] [5]. Where the sources disagree—CBS’s orientation being described as Right‑Center by one service and Middle or Left by others—those disagreements reflect shifting editorial leadership, different scopes (website vs broadcast), and the inevitable subjectivity in defining bias [6] [2] [8].
5. What reporting cannot settle here
Existing sources document tendencies and ratings but do not and cannot exhaustively prove intent or uniform newsroom practice across every program and reporter; ownership ties and editorial hires are documented, but causation between a single hire and “the network’s bias” is not established in the materials provided [2] [6]. Readers should therefore treat outlet labels as diagnostic shorthand rather than immutable truths, and consult multiple assessments—Ad Fontes, AllSides, MBFC, and academic studies—to triangulate how ABC, CBS and peers perform on both accuracy and slant [4] [2] [1] [3].