The Influence of News Brand Cues and Story Content on Citizen Perceptions of News Bias

Abstract

Mainstream U.S. news media stand accused of bias against the forty-fifth president, Donald Trump. The relentlessness and intensity of these accusations over the course of Trump’s presidency are unusual and make for an opportunity to study perceptions of news bias. During the experiment reported here, participants (N = 315) were exposed to biased (pro- and anti-Trump) news stories that were attributed to either CNN, Breitbart, or remained unattributed to a news brand. After reading the stories, participants rated the stories for their relative slantedness in favor of, neutral, or against the president. Findings reveal that news users are sensitized to the president’s accusations of bias against CNN. For example, anti-Trump stories were rated as more slanted than pro-Trump stories when they were attributed to CNN. This was not the case when the same stories were attributed to Breitbart. Interestingly, unattributed biased news received the highest ratings for slantedness.