A completely synchronized news landscape is hard to picture today. Yet in the late 1990s, as media outlets uniformly shifted to the left, a massive audience was left hungry for conservative perspectives, paving the way for outlets like Fox News.
Today, that struggle over balanced representation continues in the digital sphere. Tuesday afternoon on the podcast Next Up with Mark Halperin, Media Research Center (MRC) President David Bozell sat down with Mark Halperin to discuss why both left- and right-leaning platforms should be equally accessible to everyone. The Big Four news apps (Apple, Google, Yahoo, and MSN) favor liberal sources and largely ignore conservative sources, and the MRC is actively working to combat that issue.
The Minnesota Star Tribune made it to the top 50 websites in January, all because Apple News linked to them 11 times and Google News linked to them 6 times. @DavidBozell exposes the power of Apple and Google News with @MarkHalperin on @NextUpHalperin pic.twitter.com/8Zlddn4Vxv
— Media Research Center (@theMRC) July 21, 2026
Every month, Press Gazette publishes a breakdown of the top news websites in America. The New York Times consistently leads, followed by CNN, with The Wall Street Journal ranking in the top 15.
MRC research shows how public views and opinions are shaped directly by the news sources they read. A Reuters poll revealed that 58% of the country gets their news directly from either Apple News, Google News, Yahoo, or MSN as points of entry—all of which disproportionately push left-wing news outlets.
Bozell stated:
“The goal is to address where the blockage remains. Right now, conservative outlets are largely blocked at digital points of entry. If we can level the playing field on these news apps, users will get a far more balanced feed.
"The conservative ecosystem, if given an equal opportunity to thrive, it typically wins." @DavidBozell @MarkHalperin @NextUpHalperin pic.twitter.com/q8HpH36fqM
— Media Research Center (@theMRC) July 21, 2026
Balanced coverage is a necessity— every American should be able to open up their phone and get the news in its entirety, for all that it is.
Watch the full episode here:
