Nieman Lab
Nieman Lab has a Center media bias.
AllSides conducted an editorial review of Nieman Lab on March 19, 2020, and unanimously determined that Nieman Lab maintains a Center bias. The team was impressed that Nieman Lab's reporting is largely objective and factual, and that the outlet does not employ common types of bias typically found in outlets with a partisan slant. Nieman Lab often includes lengthy quotes from sources. The site uses neutral photos and provides a lot of context. Nieman Lab does not cover issues through an overtly political lens. It should be noted that Nieman Lab covers the media industry, including businesses and trends within it, and not political issues themselves. The site's "What We're Reading" section includes headlines from a diverse array of topics and outlets.
About Nieman Lab
Nieman Lab bills itself as "an attempt to help journalism figure out its future in an Internet age."
"The Internet has brought forth an unprecedented flowering of news and information," reads Nieman Lab's About page. "But it has also destabilized the old business models that have supported quality journalism for decades. Good journalists across the country are losing their jobs or adjusting to a radically new news environment online. We want to highlight attempts at innovation and figure out what makes them succeed or fail. We want to find good ideas for others to steal. We want to help reporters and editors adjust to their online labors; we want to help traditional news organizations find a way to survive; we want to help the new crop of startups that will complement — or supplant — them."
Nieman Lab is part of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard.
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As millions of people around the world were under lockdown this year, social media became a lifeline for many. While researchers and journalists were focused on mis- and disinformation flourishing on the main social media platforms, information disruptors returned to old-school methods of sowing chaos and confusion through leaflets, billboards, emails, SMS, and robocalls.
The pandemic became an opportunity for the dissemination of Covid-19 hoaxes and conspiracy theories through mailboxes straight into people’s homes. Leaflets sent out in the UK claimed that the government, the media and National Health Service representatives were attempting to “create the illusion of an unprecedented deadly pandemic” to justify “extreme lockdown measures.” People living near the Canberra Hospital in Australia received flyers alleging that Covid-19 is being spread by the government through the water supply, and that a vaccination would contain a tracking device. Misleading claims about the virus were also printed on billboards and posters: An Indian example promoted essential oils to protect people from Covid-19. Two U.S. billboards bore the message that “It’s NOT about a ‘VIRUS’! It’s about CONTROL” alongside an image of a crash-test dummy wearing a mask.