I’m a diehard Apple guy. My first experience with a Mac came during my senior year of high school on the school newspaper staff (on the same Mac that Mrs. Travis, our faculty advisor, got me hooked on the game Shanghai). I had MacBooks through my two stints on staff at church, and I’ve bought three of my own over the years.
As soon as the iPhone came to Verizon in 2012, I was all in. For a while, I kept both a MacBook and a PC laptop, but when my mom’s computer died, I gave her my fairly new HP laptop. (I still have an older PC laptop that I only use when I need to rip tracks off a CD, but it always feels like a weird learning curve when I have to use it.)
Side note: Everybody in my family uses iPhones except for my brother. His reason? Apple CEO Tim Cook is an Auburn alumnus. Even my Bulldogs fandom isn’t that stubborn.
One of the few Apple apps that I don’t use is Apple News. I get news from other aggregators, as well as from the info that floats around the PJ Media/Townhall Media universe. Apple News is unwieldy when it comes to sharing links, so that also makes it less effective for me.
It’s probably for the best to avoid Apple News, especially if you’re looking for a conservative perspective on the news. New research has shown that Apple News totally shut out center-right and conservative outlets in its daily top 20 articles lists every day in December.
Related: ‘Difficult Times’ for the Mainstream Media? Cry Me a River.
Heather Moon reports at Media Research Center:
Apple News failed to link to a single right-leaning media outlet among its top 20 daily articles during the month of December. Out of the 620 opportunities analyzed at approximately 10:00 a.m. each day by the Media Research Center, Apple News whiffed every single time.
Instead, dozens of times Apple News published articles from leftist outlets like The Washington Post, NBC News, and NPR, and center outlets like Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, and the BBC.
For what it’s worth, it’s more than a stretch to call the BBC “center.”
The last time Apple News featured an article from a conservative outlet was November 5, when it included an article from The Telegraph, a UK newspaper. That’s one article out of 560 in November. Zero in December.
“After reviewing the results through the end of December, it is clear that the omission of right-leaning sources was not accidental,” Moon reports. “None of the top 20 articles featured by Apple News for the month of December came from a right-leaning media outlet when observed at approximately 10:00 a.m. each day.”
At a time when people are increasingly turning to news aggregators, it’s important to have a varied, balanced perspective among the articles the aggregators feature. Moon reports that Apple News relies on human editors to aggregate these top stories, which may be a big tell.
I’ll still buy iPhones. I’ll still love Macs. I’ll still roll my eyes at the fact that my brother makes tech decisions based on Auburn. But Apple News? That’s a different story. Because when a news aggregator can go an entire month without letting readers see even one right-leaning outlet in its top lineup, it’s controlling rather than curating. That’s why you need news sources that you can trust. Do your homework and choose where your information comes from rather than having someone choose it for you.
If Apple News proves anything, it’s that you can’t afford to let someone else choose your information sources for you. PJ Media VIP helps you build an information diet you can trust — with reporting and commentary the mainstream won’t deliver, and the aggregators won’t promote. Become a PJ Media VIP member today and get 60% off with promo code FIGHT.
