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AP News Bias: Where It Stands, How Reliable It Is and Who Funds It

By Aplomb Editorial Team · Updated · 3 min read

Short answer

AP News is rated as one of the least biased news sources, with a slight lean left on some scales. AllSides rates it Lean Left, Media Bias/Fact Check rates it Left-Center with High factual reporting, and Ad Fontes Media places it in the Middle and rates it Reliable. Raters agree that its straight news reporting is accurate; criticism focuses on word choice and style decisions.

Political leanLeans left
LeftCenterRight
ReliabilityHigh
Mostly factualVery high

Teal dot: average of 3 raters. Ticks: each rater. How we combine them

  • AllSidesLean Left
  • Ad Fontes MediaMiddle
  • MBFCLeft-Center, High factual
APWire service · United States
Lean
Lean Left (AllSides)
Reliability
High factual reporting (MBFC)
Founded
1846
Headquarters
New York City
Owner
Not-for-profit cooperative owned by its member news organizations
Funding
AP is an independent not-for-profit news cooperative owned by its member news organizations.
On this page

Is AP News Biased?

AP's factual reporting is rarely disputed. The bias debate around AP usually concerns style choices set in the AP Stylebook, which many other newsrooms follow, and headline wording on politically charged stories.

How Reliable Is AP News?

Ad Fontes Media rates AP Reliable for analysis and fact reporting, and Media Bias/Fact Check rates its factual reporting High. AP's News Values and Principles set out how errors are corrected.

How AP News Handles Corrections

AP publishes its News Values and Principles, which set out how it handles errors and corrections.

AP corrections page

AP News Bias Rating From Independent Raters

AP News: each rater, and our average
AllSidesLean Left, -2.93 on a -6 to +6 scale
Ad Fontes MediaMiddle, -2.60 on a -42 to +42 scale
Media Bias/Fact CheckLeft-Center, -2.1 on a -10 to +10 scale
Aplomb averageLeans left, -1.48
LeftCenterRight

All bars use one shared scale: the shaded band is each rater's own center zone, lined up. How we combine the raters

Ratings as published by each rater, checked October 14, 2026. Ad Fontes Media scores bias from -42 (left) to +42 (right) and reliability from 0 to 64.
RaterBias ratingFactual / reliability
AllSidesLean LeftNot rated (lean only)
Ad Fontes MediaMiddle (-2.60)44.29: Reliable, Analysis/Fact Reporting
Media Bias/Fact CheckLeft-Center (-2.1)High, High Credibility

Is AP News Left or Right?

Ratings for AP range from the Middle (Ad Fontes Media) to Lean Left (AllSides) and Left-Center (Media Bias/Fact Check). The difference mostly comes from how each rater weighs wording and story selection. AP's main product is straight news supplied to member newsrooms of every political leaning.

AllSides rates AP News Lean Left; Ad Fontes Media scores its bias at -2.60 (Middle) and its reliability at 44.29 (Reliable, Analysis/Fact Reporting); and Media Bias/Fact Check rates it Left-Center with High factual reporting.

See where AP News sits next to other outlets on our media bias chart.

Who Funds AP News?

AP is an independent not-for-profit news cooperative owned by its member news organizations. It is funded mainly by the news organizations and other customers that license its text, photos and video, rather than by donations or government grants.

Source: AP on its funding and ownership

Why AP News Is in Aplomb

AP meets all six of our source criteria: original reporting, a published standards and corrections policy, independence from government, separation of news and opinion, transparent cooperative ownership, and high factual ratings.

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Compare AP News With Similar Sources

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AP News FAQ

Is AP News biased?

Raters see little bias in AP's straight news. AllSides rates it Lean Left, Media Bias/Fact Check Left-Center, and Ad Fontes Media places it in the Middle.

Is AP News reliable?

Yes. Ad Fontes Media rates it Reliable and Media Bias/Fact Check rates its factual reporting High.

Is AP News left or right?

Slightly left of center on two of the three scales we use, and in the Middle on Ad Fontes Media.

What is the AP News bias rating?

AllSides: Lean Left. Ad Fontes Media: Middle (-2.60), Reliable (44.29). Media Bias/Fact Check: Left-Center, High factual reporting.

Aplomb Editorial Team
Aplomb Editorial Team

Aplomb's editorial team selects and reviews the newsrooms in the app, checks every bias rating against the rater's own published page, and writes our source profiles and app comparisons. We follow our published editorial policy and log every correction in public. More about our editorial team

Sources: AP ethics and standards, AP funding and ownership. Ratings: AllSides, Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias/Fact Check, linked in the rating table.

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