A new analysis by the conservative Media Research Center (MRC) claims that some of the most heavily promoted news outlets on Apple News and Google News have overwhelmingly backed Democratic presidential candidates in their editorial endorsements over the past four decades.
The study argues that the pattern raises questions about the political diversity of news sources promoted by major digital news aggregators.
According to the MRC analysis, the five most-promoted outlets on Apple News and Google News that have a history of presidential endorsements collectively gave 31 endorsements to Democratic candidates and none to Republicans across the 10 presidential elections from 1988 through 2024.
For Apple News, MRC identified 28 Democratic endorsements and zero Republican endorsements. USA Today was counted separately because it broke from its traditional non-endorsement policy in 2016 to issue an editorial warning against Donald Trump rather than endorse a Democratic candidate.
For Google News, the outlets recorded 27 Democratic endorsements and zero Republican endorsements, with USA Today again issuing an anti-Trump editorial rather than a formal Democratic endorsement.
The MRC describes the findings as evidence of a political imbalance among the news organizations most prominently featured by the platforms.
For Apple News, the five most-promoted outlets with presidential endorsement histories were identified as:
The organizations have endorsed Democratic candidates in every presidential election covered by the study, according to MRC.
Those endorsements included Michael Dukakis in 1988, Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Al Gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024.
The report also examined the language used by several publications when endorsing candidates.
MRC highlighted USA Today's 2016 editorial opposing Trump, in which the newspaper said he lacked the “temperament, knowledge, steadiness and honesty” required of a president.
The New York Times' 2024 endorsement of Kamala Harris similarly praised her as a “dedicated public servant” with “care” and “competence,” while describing Trump as “morally unfit” and “temperamentally unfit.”
The Washington Post's 2020 endorsement backed Biden as “exceptionally well-qualified” and “deeply empathetic,” while describing Trump as “the worst president of modern times,” according to the MRC report.
The MRC argues that such language illustrates what it sees as a recurring contrast between favourable descriptions of Democratic candidates and highly critical portrayals of Republicans.
The analysis goes back to 1988, when The New York Times described Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis as a “disciplined and serious man” with “decent instincts.”