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-36% Somewhat Left

Bias Meter

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Bias Meter

How the Rating is Determined
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CBS News has a Bias Score of -36% Somewhat Left which is based on a variety of factors including its policy and politician leanings, article ratings, and the use of biased language. Its Reliability is rated as Good, and additional analytical insights are available in the other tabs.

  • Bias Rating

    -36% Somewhat Left

  • Reliability
    77% Reliable Good
  • Policy Leanings

    -20% Somewhat Left

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    Average Reliability

    *Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.

  • Politician Portrayal

    100% negative

CBS News Editorial Patterns

CBS News’s coverage of political topics often reflects a Somewhat Left bias, with consistent patterns in phrasing, source selection, and thematic focus that are Slightly Liberal. While CBS News is generally rated as left-leaning, long-term academic research suggests its tone shifts depending on political context and governing administration. This content analysis examines CBS News’s handling of left and right-leaning issues, along with its word choices and editorial preferences.

Coverage of Liberal vs. Conservative Topics

CBS News’s articles tend to sympathize with left-leaning perspectives, but some research demonstrates that the platform is simply anti-establishment. The European Journal of Political Economy found that CBS News is often more critical of Republicans, but that the platform’s biases have varied with the sitting leadership. For example, under Barack Obama’s administration, the news source became less left and more critical of Democrats than it had been during George W. Bush’s administration, when it had been more critical of Republicans. Despite this large-scale political study, the source predominantly maintains a Somewhat Left slant in its reporting.

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CBS News Bias Analysis

Founded in 1929, CBS News is an American division of television and radio services. Within their category, they are ranked as the 25th best news source. According to Similarweb.com, CBS News had 67.7 million visits to its website in May 2023.

CBS News is a quality news organization known for its highly factual reporting. This brings us to the question: Can CBS News be biased? According to the Reuters Institute, the platform is the most trusted American news source, only beaten by local TV news.

Bar chart showing trust levels in US news brands; local TV news leads with 58% trust, while BuzzFeed News is lowest at 33%. Other brands fall between, with varied "neither" and "don't trust" ratings.

Source: Reuters

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CBS News Reliability Analysis

Is CBS News Reliable?

It can be argued that CBS News is a generally trustworthy news source with a strong reputation for journalistic integrity, but there are exceptions that indicate the degree of truth in its publications may fluctuate.

The more you research media reliability and accuracy, the simpler it will be for you to spot problems with sources, selection, omission, and factuality. To help with this, you can use Biasly’s News Bias Checker to uncover reliability problems and assist you in finding the most accurate and dependable news.

How to Evaluate Reliability?

Reliability refers to how trustworthy or accurate a news source is. If we can’t trust what we read, then continuing to consume content from that outlet serves little purpose. So how do we evaluate a news outlet’s reliability?

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Funding and Ownership

Last updated: January 12, 2026

Who Owns CBS News?

A man in a suit holding a microphone speaks on stage, gesturing with his left hand in front of a blurred presentation screen.

Larry Ellison, Source: Wikimedia

CBS News was owned by Paramount Global, formed in 2019 when Viacom merged with CBS Corporation. The primary shareholder of Paramount Global until 2025 was National Amusements, owned by the Redstone family. Paramount Global also owns Paramount Pictures, MTV, Nickelodeon, and the streaming service Paramount+. On August 7, 2025, Skydance Media, owned by David Ellison, acquired National Amusements and the Redstone family’s controlling stake in Paramount Global. With the large financial backing of his billionaire father, Larry Ellison, co-founder of tech giant Oracle, David Ellison now owns the controlling stake in Paramount Global, CBS News’s parent company, and thereby CBS News.

Who Funds CBS News?

CBS News is mostly funded by advertising and affiliate fees, along with subscription revenue from its parent company. Paramount-Skydance owns an array of streaming services, TV networks, studios, and digital outlets that generate substantial advertising revenue for the parent company of CBS News.

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Additional Insights

News Source Comparison

In news source comparisons, CBS News is often evaluated alongside other national outlets such as ABC, NBC, and FOX News. While each of these large media institutions expresses varying levels of ideological bias, they maintain fixtures in the news media sphere in the same way as CBS News. Biasly’s bias and reliability ratings for the source place it in the upper echelon of biased news sources, compared with those previously listed, but within the normal range of reliability.

ABC and NBC News are rated as much less biased than CBS News and FOX News, which are on opposite sides of the political spectrum. All comparable sources maintain a decent level of reliability, indicating that they do not necessarily tamper with the facts to push bias; however, verbiage, selection, and omission bias, as well as biased editorial tendencies, persist.

Notable Contributors and Authors

CBS News features a diverse range of reporters and broadcasters, many of whom have been previously mentioned. The current anchor of CBS Evening News is Emmy winner Tony Dokoupil, known for noteworthy interviews with powerful world leaders. The CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King has been inducted into the Broadcasters Hall of Fame and famously covered the Sandy Hook tragedy in Newtown, Pennsylvania.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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Ratings are based on recent news using data science and A.I. technology.