The Media Research Center has attacked Apple News for not being sufficiently right-wing — which its nepo-baby leader further pushed in a March 20 post:
Apple News’s bias against right-leaning media outlets has become more and more evident — and MRC studies suggest that this may be by design, prompting MRC President David Bozell to call for a federal investigation.
In a recent letter to FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson Bozell urged an investigation of Apple for potential anti-competitive behavior, highlighting MRC’s troubling findings on Apple News’s curation practices. Bozell noted in his letter that while left-leaning media dominate Apple News, rampant anti-conservative bias is only the beginning of the problem.
Despite what Apple claims, its app promotes a massive imbalance of content favoring the left, and it is exceedingly difficult for excluded right-leaning outlets to join the ranks of the app’s curated content, if they can join it at all. Apple also makes it virtually impossible for users to block perspectives they do not desire to see. Further still, Apple may have run afoul of federal competition law by giving its app preferential treatment.
But Bozell’s evidence is dubious at best. As we documented, the MRC relies on AllSides — an organization with an obvious right-leaning bias — to judge the ratings of the outlets it judges, which means those ratings are dominated by “left-leaning” outlets. The MRC also has given no reason why explicitly right-wing outlets deserve equal time with balanced outlets that it misleadingly dismisses as “left.”
Bozell then ran to the MRC’s favorite media outlet to peddle his narrative:
Media Research Center (MRC) President David Bozell joined Fox Business Network’s Jackie DeAngelis and Brian Brengberg, hosts of The Bottom Line, on Friday, to talk about his letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requesting a formal investigation into Apple. Bozell said Apple News isn’t just curating news, it may be misleading consumers and shutting out competition in the process.
In a formal complaint to FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, Bozell laid out a pattern of deception surrounding Apple News.
At the center of the controversy is control. Apple claims users can “tailor” their feeds, including blocking outlets. But MRC’s investigation found that’s simply not true. Bozell argued this isn’t a minor glitch, but a deliberate design choice that strips users of meaningful control over the information they consume.
Then there’s the illusion of openness. Apple publicly suggests publishers can apply for inclusion, yet rejected MRC outlets like NewsBusters and Free Speech America after long delays — while continuing to advertise the platform as broadly accessible. Bozell said that contradiction raises serious questions about whether Apple is misleading publishers as well as users.
No dissenting view was apparently permitted.
It took both Heather Moon and Michael Morris to rant in a March 26 post:
Looking to add additional content to the predownloaded news app on the iPhone? The Apple News+ subscription service provides plenty of bias and leaves much to be desired.
Potential subscribers to Apple News+ might wonder whether shelling out $12.99 per month to get what Apple itself describes as “Access [to] top stories from over 500 leading publications” is worth it. Media Research Center researchers looked at the publications that Apple says are included in the monthly fee to determine if users are getting what they pay for. The results were overtly biased and largely underwhelming.
MRC’s Findings:
- Apple News+ is unmistakably biased in favor of the left. Of the AllSides-rated outlet articles included in Apple’s subscription service Apple News+, there are 51 left-leaning outlets to only three right-leaning outlets.
- Apple News+ purports to offer a robust subscription service. An analysis of its offerings demonstrates otherwise.
- Apple claims its subscription service Apple News+ offers “over 500 outlets,” but the news aggregator subscription only offers roughly 450 outlets in its list of “All Publications” on its website when accounting for duplicated outlets.
- Several of the articles you pay for in the Apple News+ subscription, you can read for free by going directly to the host website.
“Apple, once again, shows its true colors. Apple’s 51-to-three disparity is less a news service and more a megaphone for one side,” said MRC President David Bozell. “When a tech giant becomes a gatekeeper favoring one side of the news, it betrays its duty to deliver balanced perspectives. If Apple wants credibility as a news aggregator, it must commit to genuine fairness in the marketplace of ideas.”
Bozell, of course, would prefer that Apple News be a megaphone for his side — not that he’ll publicly admit it, of course. And if that were actually so, he would not complain so vociferously about the purported lack of “genuine fairness in the marketplace of ideas.”
Bozell then an to another right-wing radio show, as detailed in a March 27 post:
On Friday’s edition of The Dana Show, Media Research Center President David Bozell joined host Dana Loesch to pull back the curtain on the “Censorship Industrial Complex’s” latest efforts to gaslight the American public. From burying overwhelming support for the SAVE America Act to the universally negative coverage of military successes in Iran, Bozell warned that the legacy media has moved beyond simple bias into a total blockade of the truth.
[…]The conversation shifted to how Apple is managing the narrative for 125 million Apple News users. Bozell recounted a chilling example of a “headline scroll” that featured Chuck Schumer blaming Republicans for TSA funding. This was an abject lie and a total inversion of the truth. “This is not just your typical run-of-the-mill liberal bias,” Bozell warned. “This is a total blockage of the conservative viewpoint at the point of entry.”
It was not indicated why right-wingers deserve to have a viewpoint to which nobody is allowed to respond.