How Veritype rates sources

Last updated: August 26, 2026

Veritype's Similar Sources feature finds real coverage of the same story from outlets at a different point on the political spectrum. To do that it draws on a curated list of 266 US outlets. This page explains how that list is built, and how we handle the separate question of whether an outlet has a documented record of publishing false claims.

Two axes, kept separate

Political lean and factual reliability are different things, and treating them as one is how source ratings lose people's trust. An outlet can argue openly from the left or the right and report accurately. Another can claim neutrality and publish things that are simply false. So we rate them separately and show them separately.

Political lean is a position from strongly left-leaning to strongly right-leaning, reflecting an outlet's general reputation rather than any single article. It is a judgment about framing and emphasis, and we present it as a coarse label rather than a precise number, because that is the most it honestly supports.

Factual record is not a judgment at all. We only record it when there is a specific, dated, public event we can point to and you can go check.

What qualifies an outlet to be flagged

A flag requires a documented event — a defamation judgment or settlement, a published retraction, a court finding, a platform enforcement action. Three rules follow from that:

Reputation is not evidence. "Widely considered unreliable" is not a basis for a flag here, however widely it is considered.
We do not cite other rating services. Ratings from services like NewsGuard, Media Bias/Fact Check and AllSides helped us decide which outlets to go investigate. None of them is used as a basis, because their methods are themselves contested and we would rather stand behind our own citation.
When in doubt, no flag. If we could not confirm a specific event, the outlet is listed with no flag. Several outlets many people would expect to see flagged are not, for exactly this reason.

The most important consequence of that last rule: the absence of a flag is not a finding of accuracy. It means no specific documented event was confirmed. Small outlets in particular can publish a great deal that is false without ever generating a court record, precisely because there is nothing worth suing over. A clean row on this page is the absence of evidence, not evidence of absence.

Disclosed and hidden are two different thresholds

Applying a documented-event standard evenly produces a result that surprises people: it catches large, well-resourced newsrooms, because those are the outlets that generate lawsuits and formal retractions. Treating a single corrected incident the same as a business model would be plainly wrong. So there are two tiers.

Disclosed. An incident the outlet corrected, retracted or settled. These outlets appear in Similar Sources results normally, with a note about what happened. They are never hidden.

Hidden by default. Outlets where publishing false claims is characteristic of the output rather than an incident within it. These do not appear in results unless you turn on "Include sources with contested factual records" in the panel — and when they do appear, they carry the same note explaining why.

We apply the same standard to outlets we would guess our users like and outlets we would guess they don't. Applying it to major national newsrooms is what makes applying it to fringe sites credible.

Outlets hidden by default

Shown only when you opt in. Sorted from left to right by political lean.

Outlet	Political lean	What happened
Occupy Democrats	Far left	PolitiFact has published fact-checks rating a substantial share of the Occupy Democrats claims it reviewed as False or Pants on Fire. Source
Palmer Report	Far left	PolitiFact and Snopes have each published fact-checks rating specific Palmer Report claims false or unproven. Source
Project Veritas	Far right	A jury found it liable in 2022 for misrepresentation and wiretapping violations over secretly recorded footage, awarding $120,000, and it separately apologized to an Erie postmaster for reports it said were based on wrong information. Source
Newsmax	Far right	Agreed to pay Smartmatic $40 million in September 2024 and settled a related suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, having broadcast a retraction and apology to a Dominion employee in April 2021 over its 2020 election coverage. Source
Natural News	Far right	Facebook removed its page in 2020 after finding it used overseas content farms to amplify posts, and NBC News documented it as a leading distributor of false COVID-19 claims. Source
OANN	Far right	Settled a defamation suit brought by Smartmatic in April 2024 over its 2020 election coverage. Source
The Gateway Pundit	Far right	Settled a defamation suit brought by Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss in October 2024 over false 2020 election-fraud claims, after a bankruptcy judge dismissed its Chapter 11 filing as an attempt to avoid that litigation. Source
Infowars	Far right	A Connecticut jury found Alex Jones and Infowars liable for defamation in 2022 over repeated false claims that the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting was staged; a separate Texas court entered judgment in the same matter. Source

Outlets with a disclosed incident

These appear in results normally. The note travels with the result. Sorted from left to right by political lean.

Outlet	Political lean	What happened
Rolling Stone	Far left	Fully retracted its November 2014 article "A Rape on Campus" in April 2015, and a jury found in November 2016 that the magazine had defamed a University of Virginia administrator, awarding her $3 million. Source
CNN	Left	Retracted a story about a Trump associate in June 2017, after which three journalists resigned; in January 2025 a Florida jury found CNN had defamed Navy veteran Zachary Young and awarded $5 million, and CNN settled hours later. Source
ABC News	Left	Settled a defamation suit brought by Donald Trump for $15 million in December 2024 and posted a note expressing regret, after a March 2024 segment said he had been found liable for rape when the jury finding was sexual abuse. Source
Fox News	Far right	Settled a defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million in April 2023, the largest such payout in US media history, acknowledging the court rulings that certain claims it aired about Dominion were false. Source
American Thinker	Far right	Published a retraction and apology in January 2021 stating that its articles accusing Dominion Voting Systems of conspiring to steal the 2020 election were completely false and had no basis in fact. Source

If you think a rating is wrong

Tell us and we will look at it. We are especially interested in two kinds of correction: a flag whose stated basis is inaccurate or has been superseded (an overturned judgment, a mischaracterized event), and an outlet that meets the documented-event standard but isn't listed. Both make the list better. Use the Contact page.

Ratings reflect our reading of public record at the time of the last update above, and are offered as information to help you judge what you're reading — not as a verdict on any outlet.