Sources
Every news outlet, social platform, legislative API, and prediction market the Political Temperature Index ingests. Bias bucket follows the AllSides 5-category scheme (Left / Lean Left / Center / Lean Right / Right). We do not pay for outlet inclusion and we do not weight individual outlets in volume, polarization, intensity, or friction. The 30-day share column shows the observed ingestion mix.
Sub-index weights (composite temperature)
These five sub-indices are weighted to produce the daily composite. Individual outlets are not weighted in volume, polarization, intensity, or friction (every article counts once). Rhetoric, the 10% sub-index, multiplies each article's toxicity / inflammatory / GDELT-tone signal by sources.reliability_score, so higher-reliability outlets carry more influence in that sub-score. The reliability column on this page surfaces the values that drive it.
Bias balance
Two views of the same data. Source-count balance tells you how many distinct news + commentary outlets we ingested from in each bucket over the last 30 days; article-share balance weights by how many articles each outlet produced. Both views exclude (a) institutional sources like the White House Briefing Room, which carry no polarization signal by design, and (b) social platform rows (Reddit, YouTube), which contribute to polarization scoring through social_posts but are counted separately so one large platform doesn't skew the news-outlet mix. Dormant outlets (no articles in the window) are also excluded so the bars reflect the active mix, not the registered mix.
Source-count balance (distinct active outlets, last 30 days)
Article-share balance (volume-weighted 30-day mix)
50,292 articles in the last 30 days attributed to a listed outlet (these are what the bars above are weighted by).
16,898 (25.1%) ingested with no source attribution. This is a mix of two things: (a) genuine long-tail outlets we haven't curated yet (mostly via GDELT scraping the wider web), and (b) outlets that ARE in our registry but failed our domain-matching during ingest. We re-run attribution periodically to narrow the gap; the roadmap below tracks expansion.
108 articles came from institutional sources (agency_press_release, federal_register) that intentionally don't carry a polarization signal.
Outlet registry
1224 of 2180 sources| Category | Integration | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
r/politics | Left-1.5 · seed-sources | social | — | 9.97%5,014 articles· #1 | Reddit (Arctic-Shift) |
r/Conservative | Right+2 · seed-sources | social | — | 5.70%2,869 articles· #2 | Reddit (Arctic-Shift) |
The Hillthehill.com | Center0 · seed-sources | news | 0.75 | 5.61%2,822 articles· #3 | RSS Aggregator |
r/news | Lean Left-0.5 · seed-sources | social | — | 5.48%2,757 articles· #4 | Reddit (Arctic-Shift) |
r/PoliticalHumor | Left-1.5 · seed-sources | social | — | 4.69%2,360 articles· #5 | Reddit (Arctic-Shift) |
r/conservatives | Right+1.5 · seed-sources | social | — | 4.35%2,188 articles· #6 | Reddit (Arctic-Shift) |
Breitbartbreitbart.com | Right+3 · seed-sources | news | 0.40 | 3.38%1,702 articles· #7 | RSS Aggregator |
The Guardian UStheguardian.com | Left-1.5 · seed-sources | news | 0.75 | 3.09%1,553 articles· #8 | auto-ingested |
Raw Storyrawstory.com | Left-2 · seed-sources | news | 0.50 | 2.95%1,482 articles· #9 | RSS Aggregator |
r/law | Center0 · seed-sources | social | — | 2.63%1,323 articles· #10 | Reddit (Arctic-Shift) |
r/AskConservatives | Lean Right+0.5 · seed-sources | social | — | 2.47%1,244 articles· #11 | Reddit (Arctic-Shift) |
r/neoliberal | Lean Left-0.5 · seed-sources | social | — | 2.31%1,164 articles· #12 | Reddit (Arctic-Shift) |
r/socialism | Left-2.5 · seed-sources | social | — | 2.26%1,139 articles· #13 | Reddit (Arctic-Shift) |
Las Vegas Review-Journalreviewjournal.com | Lean Right+1 · seed-sources | news | 0.65 | 2.14%1,074 articles· #14 | RSS Aggregator |
RealClearPoliticsrealclearpolitics.com | Center0 · seed-sources | news | 0.70 | 2.02%1,016 articles· #15 | RSS Aggregator |
r/LateStageCapitalism | Left-3 · seed-sources | social | — | 1.94%977 articles· #16 | Reddit (Arctic-Shift) |
The Ben Shapiro Showdailywire.com/show/the-ben-shapiro-show | Right+2 · seed-sources | news | 0.55 | 1.87%941 articles· #17 | RSS Aggregator |
Townhalltownhall.com | Right+2 · seed-sources | news | 0.50 | 1.87%941 articles· #18 | RSS Aggregator |
CBS Newscbsnews.com | Lean Left-0.5 · seed-sources | news | 0.80 | 1.82%913 articles· #19 | auto-ingested |
NBC Newsnbcnews.com | Lean Left-1 · seed-sources | news | 0.75 | 1.62%817 articles· #20 | RSS Aggregator |
New York Postnypost.com | Right+1.5 · seed-sources | news | 0.55 | 1.60%806 articles· #21 | RSS Aggregator |
BizPac Reviewbizpacreview.com | Right+2 · seed-sources | news | 0.45 | 1.57%792 articles· #22 | RSS Aggregator |
New York Timesnytimes.com | Lean Left-1 · seed-sources | news | 0.85 | 1.56%787 articles· #23 | auto-ingested |
Fox Businessfoxbusiness.com | Right+1.5 · seed-sources | news | 0.60 | 1.55%780 articles· #24 | auto-ingested |
r/Economics | Center0 · seed-sources | social | — | 1.47%737 articles· #25 | Reddit (Arctic-Shift) |
RedStateredstate.com | Right+2 · seed-sources | news | 0.45 | 1.41%708 articles· #26 | RSS Aggregator |
r/AskALiberal | Lean Left-0.5 · seed-sources | social | — | 1.38%695 articles· #27 | Reddit (Arctic-Shift) |
The Western Journalwesternjournal.com | Right+2.5 · seed-sources | news | 0.40 | 1.36%682 articles· #28 | RSS Aggregator |
PJ Mediapjmedia.com | Right+2 · seed-sources | news | 0.50 | 1.35%679 articles· #29 | RSS Aggregator |
Politicopolitico.com | Lean Left-0.5 · seed-sources | news | 0.80 | 1.33%671 articles· #30 | auto-ingested |
Daily Callerdailycaller.com | Right+2 · seed-sources | news | 0.50 | 1.33%669 articles· #31 | RSS Aggregator |
r/democrats | Left-2 · seed-sources | social | — | 1.30%656 articles· #32 | Reddit (Arctic-Shift) |
Yahoo Newsyahoo.com | Center0 · seed-sources | news | 0.50 | 1.24%622 articles· #33 | auto-ingested |
Washington Examinerwashingtonexaminer.com | Right+1.5 · seed-sources | news | 0.60 | 1.22%615 articles· #34 | RSS Aggregator |
Washington Timeswashingtontimes.com | Right+1.5 · seed-sources | news | 0.60 | 1.21%607 articles· #35 | RSS Aggregator |
r/uspolitics | Lean Left-0.5 · seed-sources | social | — | 1.20%605 articles· #36 | Reddit (Arctic-Shift) |
PBSpbs.org | Center0 · seed-sources | news | 0.85 | 1.13%567 articles· #37 | RSS Aggregator |
LifeZettelifezette.com | Right+2 · seed-sources | news | 0.45 | 1.11%559 articles· #38 | RSS Aggregator |
r/PoliticalDiscussion | Center0 · seed-sources | social | — | 1.11%558 articles· #39 | Reddit (Arctic-Shift) |
Just The Newsjustthenews.com | Right+2 · seed-sources | news | 0.50 | 1.07%536 articles· #40 | RSS Aggregator |
Volokh Conspiracyreason.com/volokh | Lean Right+0.5 · seed-sources | news | 0.65 | 1.06%534 articles· #41 | RSS Aggregator |
Washington Postwashingtonpost.com | Lean Left-1 · seed-sources | news | 0.85 | 1.05%530 articles· #42 | RSS Aggregator |
The Daily Signaldailysignal.com | Right+2 · seed-sources | news | 0.55 | 1.04%525 articles· #43 | RSS Aggregator |
Wirecutternytimes.com/wirecutter | Lean Left-0.3 · seed-sources | news | 0.70 | 1.04%525 articles· #44 | RSS Aggregator |
Reutersreuters.com | Center0 · seed-sources | news | 0.95 | 1.00%504 articles· #45 | auto-ingested |
LifeSite Newslifesitenews.com | Right+2.5 · seed-sources | news | 0.40 | 0.98%495 articles· #46 | RSS Aggregator |
CNNcnn.com | Lean Left-1 · seed-sources | news | 0.70 | 0.94%474 articles· #47 | auto-ingested |
Associated Pressapnews.com | Center0 · seed-sources | news | 0.95 | 0.89%450 articles· #48 | auto-ingested |
Hot Airhotair.com | Right+2 · seed-sources | news | 0.50 | 0.85%428 articles· #49 | RSS Aggregator |
Fox Newsfoxnews.com | Right+2 · seed-sources | news | 0.55 | 0.80%403 articles· #50 | auto-ingested |
Sources we tried but cannot ingest
Sources we evaluated and could not use directly, typically because of API policy changes or coverage that doesn't fit the scoring model. Documented here so the absence is visible.
- disabled
MBFC
Cross-validationFree tier insufficient (3 req/month). Use scripts/seed-sources.ts and scripts/import-allsides.ts instead
requires: RAPIDAPI_KEY
- deprecated
ProPublica Congress
LegislativeShut down July 2024. Replaced by congressional-record.ts (Congress.gov API)
- deprecated
PredictIt
ElectionsReplaced by Polymarket
- unavailable
ACLED
Cross-validationAPI key cannot be obtained for small projects
Planned additions
Sources with code already written that aren't yet wired into a daily job, plus sources we're actively trying to add. See docs/future-work/source-coverage-gaps.md for the gap-close backlog (Spanish-language outlets, Crowd Counting Consortium, deeper non-coastal local coverage).
- planned
CourtListener
Legislative - planned
Google Civic
Legislativerequires: GOOGLE_CIVIC_API_KEY
- planned
GAO Reports
Legislative - planned
SCOTUSblog
Legislative - planned
Congressional XML
Legislative - planned
Snopes
Cross-validation - planned
Voteview
Cross-validation - planned
Wikipedia Pageviews
Cross-validation - planned
GDELT TV
Cross-validation - planned
BLS
Economicrequires: BLS_API_KEY
- planned
FRED
Economicrequires: FRED_API_KEY
- planned
Treasury Fiscal Data
Economic - planned
USAspending
Economic
Methodology notes
30-day share is descriptive ingestion, not total influence. Each article counts once in volume, polarization, intensity, and friction (90% of the composite). The share column shows what fraction of articles attributed to a listed outlet came from each one over the last 30 days.
Rhetoric (10% of the composite) does weight by reliability. Inside the rhetoric sub-score, each article's toxicity, inflammatory, and GDELT-tone signal is multiplied by sources.reliability_score (default 0.5 for unknown sources). Higher-reliability outlets therefore carry more weight in that one sub-index. The reliability column on this page surfaces the values that drive it. This is the only place outlet-level weighting happens in scoring.
The 5-bucket display is wider than the runtime polarization classifier. Internally, polarization scoring uses a 3-bucket left / center / right classifier with a ±0.3 center band, so an outlet with bias_score = +0.28 displays as Lean Right here but scores as Center in polarization. The display taxonomy exists to communicate finer gradations to the public; it is not the same as the scoring taxonomy.
Bias provenance is recorded per row. seed-sources = numeric bias_score from our curated outlet table; allsides = AllSides string rating; mbfc = Media Bias / Fact Check; rss-lean = the lean field on the RSS feed entry when no other signal exists; institutional-default = institutional / agency sources that don't carry a polarization signal.
See the full methodology for the composite math, the EMA smoothing chain, and event detection. The machine-readable version of this page is at /api/sources.