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Is The Telegraph Biased?

By · Jun 19, 2024 · 11 min read

Is The Telegraph Biased?

One of Britain’s “big three” newspapers, along with The Times and The Guardian, The Telegraph has been a linchpin of Conservative Britain since 1855. The venerable outlet has long been lauded for its in-depth reporting and insightful analysis and is considered one of the authentic “papers of record” in the UK. It is also known as a favorite outlet for leading British political figures and opinion leaders, even developing a reputation as an establishment paper- famously called the “Torygraph” by critics. In this article, we will attempt to reconcile The Telegraph’s reputation with the assertion that it is a mouthpiece for conservative British opinion- is The Telegraph truly as biased as its critics claim?

According to poll data collected by YouGov, an international market research and data analytics firm headquartered in London, 49% of The Telegraph’s readership identify as Conservative party members, compared to 26% of those who read other papers. The audience is 69% male, and 22% of this audience is rated as higher income or affluent.

In this article, we will be analyzing The Telegraph’s publishing and editorial decisions to determine if there is a discernible political bias in their coverage. Through our analysis, we also hope to shed light on the factors that contribute to media bias and enable the reader to make more informed decisions about the media that they consume.

How Does Biasly Rate News Sources?

Biasly’s algorithms produce bias ratings to help provide multiple perspectives on given articles. Biasly has analyzed 200,000+ news articles from more than 3,200 news sources through our A.I. technology and team of political analysts to find the most factual, unbiased news sources.

Biasly determines the degree of political bias in news sources by using Biasly’s Bias Meter Rating, in which Biasly’s team analyzes news sources’ reliability and bias and produces three scores: a Reliability Score that measures the accuracy of media sources; an A.I. Bias Score, evaluated by A.I; and an Analyst Bias Score measured by political analysts. These scores are based on seven rating metrics, including Tone, Tendency, Diction, Author Check, and Selection/Omission. Expediency Bias and Accuracy, These metrics help our analysts to determine the political attitude of the article.

Our A.I. machine-learning system employs natural language processing and entity-specific sentiment analysis to examine individual articles and determine their bias levels. By analyzing the key terms in an article, such as policies, biased phrases, political terminologies, politicians, and their nicknames, the algorithms can rate the attitude of the text.  Bias scores range from -100% to 100%, with higher negative scores being more liberal and, higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral.

Is the Telegraph Politically Biased?

Biasly’s rating for The Telegraph is based on AI and is a product of Biasly’s computer algorithms. Biasly rated the Telegraph with a Computer Bias Score of Somewhat Conservative which leads us to believe that overall, the Telegraph provides coverage from a conservative or right-wing perspective, generally applicable whether understood through a British or an American political lens. Though Biasly does not have an Analyst Bias score for the Telegraph, it is safe to assume that the result would be somewhat similar. Analyst scores are provided by averaging together at least 15 articles, with each being reviewed by one analyst from each section of the political spectrum- one liberal, one moderate, and one conservative analyst. The analyst score is refined and made more accurate by reviewing additional articles. As more material is processed, the rating becomes more reliable.

The Telegraph has often faced criticism for its conservative, pro-business line bias, a slant that the newspaper proudly admits to:

“We are proud to be the champion of British business and enterprise… In an age of cheap populism and corrosive cynicism about wealth-creating business, we have defended British industries, including the financial services industry.”

“We have covered this matter as we do all others, according to our editorial judgment and informed by our values. Foremost among those values is a belief in free enterprise and free markets.”

Readers are more likely to have strong opinions about The Telegraph depending on their particular political leaning because of the paper’s reputation as a linchpin of conservative Britain, which Biasly represents with its “Somewhat Conservative” rating. In the rest of this article, we’ll talk about ways to identify this bias as it appears so you can be a more informed consumer.

Before we begin, we need to discuss bias. Bias is a natural function of humans, and we can express it both consciously and unconsciously. Bias is one of the most fundamental forms of pattern recognition in humans. This isn’t to lower the bar and say that “all things are biased”, but to explain the process in which we come to trust organizations that display patterns of coverage.

On the media’s part, there is an incentive to retain audiences, encourage them to purchase subscriptions, and rate products positively. Bias is a two-way street; people want to see stories about things that they care about, and the media needs viewers to continue their operations. This creates a positive feedback loop that influences what stories are covered and from what perspective. This also explains the actions of more liberal news organizations,

Analysis of Bias in The Telegraph Online Articles

YouGov has discovered that the primary audience of The Telegraph online tends to be relatively affluent and older than the average of other UK newspapers, with readers over 55 making up 33% of the online readership. The Telegraphs own analysis notes that their average reader has an income of at least £100,000/year, more than twice the national average. What’s more, 49% of The Telegraph’s readership identify as members of the Conservative party. Given this data about the demographics of The Telegraph’s readership base, does the paper’s coverage reflect any of their biases? We’ll inspect a few choice articles in more detail below in order to identify the signs.

When determining bias, some of the most common metrics used include Tone, Tendency, Author, Diction, and Expediency Bias, which are the primary metrics we’ll focus on below.

  • Tone: This represents the attitude of the writing, formed distinctively but related to the author’s word choices or diction.
  • Diction: The specific trigger or emotive words chosen by the writer.
  • Author: A metric related to the article’s author, taking into account their history of stance on issues based on past articles and social media posts.
  • Tendency measures how consistently an author shows bias in their work, including factors like their tone and perspective.
  • Expediency Bias relates to the immediate impression created by elements like the article’s headline, images, or summary, indicating if they favor a particular viewpoint.

The first article we will be examining is entitled “BBC Verify Is Becoming a Tool for Elite Control of Discourse”. Biasly has rated this article as “Somewhat Conservative.”; the reason for this is that the author, David Frost, is disguising his attacks on certain boogeymen of his as an innocent truth-seeker’s attempt to open debate. The article, a criticism of the BBC fact-checking service BBC Verify, comes straight at the reader with a hostile interpretation of the service’s aims:

“The BBC… believe that you are too stupid to make your own mind up about things, and they think that it’s the government’s job, or perhaps theirs- to do it for you instead.”

“In trying to convey an authoritative view, they are more often, as Orwell put it, giving ‘an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

The diction of the article is similarly strong. Every expert or disseminator of official narratives feels the wrath of the author’s ire, as every fact-checker has the prefix “so-called” attached to it. He depicts BBC Verify as the product of meddling bureaucrats disguising their opinions as authoritative facts.

“The problem is that they aren’t checking facts; they are also checking opinion. They can’t be experts in everything, so they have to go to other sources of authority, other supposed experts. But these people are often not neutral either.”

Though the author claims to be acting in the name of “interpretation and open debate,” the issues he chooses to name reveal his conservative orientation.

“It’s a fact that net immigration to the UK in 2023 was 685,000 people. Is that good or bad? It depends on whether or not you think it contributes to economic growth or not (which is controversial), on how you value social cohesion against the economy, and on how you value moral obligations such as taking in refugees. None of this is objective fact.”

“The authorities of our new establishment… academics, quangocrats, the BBC… have smiled instead on the growth of so-called ‘fact-checking’ outlets (whose) self-regarding takes on the news are actually dangerous… for in trying to convey an authoritative view they are more often, as Orwell put it, giving ‘an appearance of solidity to pure wind’”.

Now, by itself, the quote seems innocent enough- but the author’s diction and choice of words reveal more at play. To call for “open interpretation and debate” while simultaneously implying that rival assessments and fact-checks are “wind” imposed by “academics (and) quangocrats” on a credulous populace seems to imply that, to the author, all viewpoints are empty except for their own. The way the author structures the sentence makes the reader believe that immigration may not contribute to economic growth (he calls the question controversial) and that it may cause issues with social cohesion. The author seeks a call for open debate, but let’s now look at his interests online and in social media.

David Frost’s conservative tendencies become even more apparent with a closer investigation of his background and previous work. Per his own website, Frost was Boris Johnson’s “Chief Negotiator for Exiting the EU in 2019-20” and, as a Conservative member of the House of Lords, “writes frequently for the Daily Telegraph and elsewhere”. He is extremely open about his political tendencies, as seen in the article below:

David Frost

Source: The Telegraph

Here, not only does Mr. Frost explicitly identify himself as a Conservative, but both the headline and image reveal his perception that the British political system is broken and can only be repaired through the efforts of “we Conservatives.”

An investigation of David Frost’s X profile paints a clearer picture. Frost reveals many of his biases and personal opinions here. He reposts users who argue that the Conservative party is the only option for combating “socialist rot” and those who argue for rightward slants on issues such as migration and free speech, as well as those who argue that the Conservative party is not conservative enough.

In this article, Frost essentially isn’t fully displaying his conservative views while passing himself off as a defender of open debate. This lends credence to the assessment of the article as right-leaning overall, which aligns with our analysis of The Telegraph as an organization with a rightward slant to its publications.

Even though this article falls on the right end of the spectrum, article bias can differ between articles and authors, even when they come from the same organization. This shows the importance of looking for the signs of bias — including (but not limited to) tone, tendency, diction, author, and expediency bias — in any article you come across.

As an example, here is an article from The Telegraph that demonstrates little to no bias: “The Great American Boom is Finally Running Out of Steam, Leaving Mountains of Debt.” Biasly’s A.I. rating for this article is “Center,” as the article largely focuses on explaining the likely consequences of observable phenomena without resorting to alarmist or emotional language; in this case, the global ripple effects of American economic stagnation:

“‘The US economy is clearly slowing down, and in our base case it is headed for an outright contraction,’ said Andrew Hollenhorst, Citigroup’s US chief economist… If so, US Treasuries, German Bunds, and UK Gilts are massively mispriced.”

“An outcome of this severity would spread to Britain almost instantly through the world’s dollarized credit system and via contagion effects, leaving the new government facing an immediate economic crisis.”

Mr. Evans-Pritchard’s Twitter presence does not reveal much, if anything, about his personal biases. He himself has no Twitter profile and has often received praise for his balanced coverage on economic and energy policy.

Analysis of The Telegraph Opinion Articles

It must always be kept at the forefront of the reader’s mind that there is a distinct difference between fact-based reporting and opinion pieces. While reporting is intended to be focused on providing the reader with facts and quotes from primary sources in order to let the reader form their own opinion, editorials are expressly designed for columnists to express their opinions on the issues of the day. Opinion pieces in The Telegraph are no different; they do not seek to be objective and cannot be considered wholly so. It is best to think of bias as a spectrum; total objectivity is an ideal, but some pieces can still be less biased than others.

Consider the opinion article “Spain Is Now Europe’s Most Despicable Nation.” Even a cursory glance through the article tells us that the author does not aim for as much objectivity; the language used makes no secret of the author’s views or the way he wants to pursuade the reader; the choice of the word “despicable” indicates a level of disdain or disgust which implies that the author considers an action beyond the pale, and would like the reader to feel similarly. Again, in this article, the author doesn’t seem to provide an objective report on an event; such slanted language often appears in opinion articles, and the reader should take care with articles that so reveal the author’s ideological leanings.

On the other hand, the article “Europe’s Center is Still Holding- For Now,” despite the title, is more objective than the previous article because the content is focused on informing the reader rather than pushing any particular agenda.  Reliable articles are also generally marked by neutral language and verifiable facts from a wide variety of sources; though both of the articles above are opinion pieces, this one’s use of more neutral language and its greater commitment to “just-the-facts” reporting without the injection of the author’s personal opinions give it a greater degree of reliability.

These articles, in addition to those above, are only a small representation of what The Telegraph has to offer, but they indicate that the outlet is often characterized by a great deal of opinion — further underscoring the importance of knowing how to distinguish subjective writing from genuine reporting.

Who Owns The Telegraph?

Until 2023, the Telegraph Media Group (TMG) was the proprietor of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph. A subsidiary of Press Holdings, TMG was owned by billionaires David and Frederick Barclay, who bought the company for 665 million pounds in 2004 from Canadian financier Conrad Black. After it was discovered that Barclays had run up nearly 1 billion pounds in debt, the family was forced to divest from TMG, and B.UK, the Bermuda-based holding company that is the parent of TMG, went into receivership and TMG is currently for sale.

There have been several bids placed for ownership, including most publicly and recently by the Redbird IMI consortium, an investment firm funded in large part by Sheik Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, deputy prime minister and vice president of the United Arab Emirates. This bid was blocked after the British government acted in January to bar foreign governments from ownership of UK newspapers and news magazines.

The Telegraph’s reputation as a legacy paper with influence in British conservative circles has caused several notable individuals with interests in media to inquire into purchasing TMG, including News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch; Jonathan Harmsworth, chairman and controlling shareholder of the Daily Mail, and Sir Paul Marshall, co-owner of GB News. Given the right-wing background of these individuals and the conservative slant of the outlets they own, it is reasonable to infer that whoever ends up controlling The Telegraph would continue to uphold its tradition of supporting conservative causes and would in no way be interested in changing the paper’s conservative orientation.

Barclay Brothers wearing suits, one with a purple tie and the other with a blue tie, are standing together and smiling.

David and Frederick Barclay. Source: Flickr, estatesgazette

How To Evaluate and Uncover Bias

It can often be difficult to tell if the news you watch is biased. If you have settled on a news channel, it is usually because you trust the information you are gaining. Unfortunately, many trust the information they are hearing because it confirms what they already believe. This is referred to as “confirmation bias.” It is important to challenge your beliefs and get third-party verification that what you are hearing is the full story. This is why we recommend using Biasly to compare different news stories side by side using our bias ratings to figure out what both sides think of a political issue.

Though Biasly gave The Telegraph a bias score of Somewhat Conservative, remember that this is only a general assessment and is not meant to be taken as gospel. The Telegraph does not exclusively publish pieces with a conservative slant. It has published articles with a wide variety of stances throughout its long history; its conservative slant is simply a tendency. In addition, certain article types will inherently be more biased than others; opinion pieces are generally more biased than general news articles. While it is a fact of life that every article one reads will be biased to some degree, some keep to the facts better than others. Use Biasly’s News Check to help you find the bias in what you read.

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