Apple News blinked after an MRC Free Speech America report that called out the app for running 620 top stories from left-leaning and other outlets while running exactly zero top stories from right-leaning outlets in the month of January went viral.
Since the story went viral Feb. 11, 2026 following FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson’s letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook about the digital news gatekeeper’s leftist bias, the news app has run eight articles from right-leaning outlets (2%) in its daily morning top 20 news stories.
The Media Research Center tracked Apple News’s top 20 daily stories each morning during the month of February (totaling 560 stories) and found that the platform consistently amplified left-leaning outlets while suppressing right-leaning outlets.
MRC’s Findings:
- Apple News only modestly increased featured articles from right-leaning outlets, moving from zero to 2% in the days after MRC's viral Apple News study after which the FTC sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook on Feb. 11.
- Apple News elevated left-leaning media outlets 400 out of 530 total AllSides-rated stories (75%), while only featuring eight right-leaning stories (1.5%) in the top 20 of its morning editions throughout the month of February.
- Of the small fraction of articles from right-leaning outlets (8) that Apple News did share during the month, seven of them came from only one source, Fox News, while also sharing a single article from UK-based outlet The Telegraph.
Apple’s apparent reaction does not represent balance. It barely moves the needle, as MRC President David Bozell noted. “Two percent is not progress. It’s damage control,” wrote Bozell. “If public exposure and a federal inquiry only yield a modest adjustment, that suggests the bias we documented was deeply embedded. Apple News should not require public pressure to reflect viewpoint diversity. This is not about token inclusion. It’s about whether one of the most powerful information gatekeepers in the country operates fairly.”
Apple News Only Modestly Increased Right-Leaning Outlets After Viral MRC Study
The FTC, after months of MRC reporting, issued a letter putting Apple on notice that its terms and conditions would be scrutinized to ensure it was not making misleading claims about its product. Two days after the FTC letter, Apple News began running a modest increase in articles from right-leaning outlets (8 total) in its top news stories in the mornings.
The FTC letter was issued on Feb. 11, 2026, and the first right-leaning story appeared in Apple News’s top-20 headlines on the morning of Feb. 13, 2026. Since then, Apple editors selected an additional seven right-leaning headlines, amounting to merely two percent of its top morning headlines - hardly an improvement.
"Two percent is pathetic," said MRC VP Dan Schneider. "It's obvious that Apple News's crisis preparedness team put together a strategy so that Tim Cook could say that it has published at least some right-leaning stories since FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson sent his letter."
Although Apple News appears to have reacted to valid concerns about the biased nature of its top stories, its results throughout February 2026 continue to demonstrate that Apple News editors suppress right-leaning perspectives on the news every day instead of providing balance.
Apple News Featured 75% Left-Leaning, 1.5% Right-Leaning Outlets Throughout February
Apple News ran a total of 530 AllSides-rated top stories in the month of February. Of these, 400 (75%) were from left-leaning outlets. Only eight (1.5%) came from right-leaning outlets. While this is more right-leaning outlets than in December (0) or January (0), providing less than 2% of coverage from right-leaning outlets does not represent balanced reporting.
Particularly biased leftist headlines used in February included: “Trump wants to ‘nationalize the voting,’ seeking to grab states’ power” from The Washington Post, “Census Bureau plans to use survey with a citizenship question in its test for 2030, alarming experts” from The Associated Press, “Broken bones, burning eyes: How Trump's DHS deploys 'less lethal' weapons on protesters” from NBC News, “Trump says "I didn't make a mistake" after racist video of Obamas removed” from Axios and “The Trump administration is increasingly trying to criminalize observing ICE” from NPR.
Right-leaning headlines chosen by Apple News editors included a story from British outlet The Telegraph that covered former Prince Andrew’s arrest over the Epstein files. Seven headlines from Fox News also appeared in the top stories, including stories about the rise of colon cancer, new U.S. strikes on drug boats, a delayed NASA launch, the Clinton’s depositions about the Epstein files, Melania Trump presiding over the UN Security Council, and one story about the Russia-Ukraine war that remained among the top-20 headlines two days in a row.
According to a report from the Reuters Institute, “engagement with traditional media sources such as TV, print, and news websites continues to fall, while dependence on social media, video platforms, and online aggregators grows,” particularly in the United States. Indeed, according to Pew Research Center, 86% of Americans turn to their digital devices for news “at least sometimes.” With Apple News coming preinstalled on every iPhone and Google News being standard on Android devices, 99.74% of U.S. smartphone users are exposed to at least one of the Big Four News Apps by default.
Methodology: During the time period Feb. 1 - 28, 2026, MRC researchers examined the top 20 stories featured on Apple News each day at approximately 8:30 AM ET. MRC researchers used the AllSides media bias ratings, which categorize an outlet as “left,” “lean left,” “center,” “lean right” or “right” to determine the overall bias presented by Apple News and analyzed the results.
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