Sowetan is a popular newspaper in South Africa, published from and headquartered in South Africa. In this article, Mediabuzz is going to analyze Sowetan’s media bias and Sowetan’s factual reporting on the basis of its coverage, language used, presidential endorsements, media reports, research and blind surveys. We have also commented on the left or right biasedness of the Sowetan along with its factual accuracy.
Media Bias Analysis Summary
After thorough research, we will conclude whether the Sowetanis Left Leaning, Right Leaning or Centred in its approach. For Sowetan, we will go through several researches, studies, blind surveys, headline analysis, etc. to comment on Sowetan’s media bias. Based on the above analysis, we will assign one of the media bias meter out of all the seven possible meters shown here.
Factual Reporting Summary
For commenting on the factual accuracy of the Sowetan, we will flip through previous news articles of the publication and observe if Sowetan has published any factually incorrect information. Based on this, we will conclude that we have commented on the factual accuracy of Sowetan. Based on the above analysis, we will assign one of the media reliability meter out of all the three possible meters shown here.
A. Sowetan Media Bias Analysis
Under this section, we will briefly explain the factors that contribute towards our media bias conclusion for Sowetan. We will observe, analyse and comment on the Sowetan language used, presidential endorsement, controversies, allegations, political views of Sowetan’s editors, etc. to support our inference.
1. Sowetan Emotional Influence & Adjectives in Headlines
We will rummage through previous headlines of Sowetan to look out for usage of influential language, adjectives, emotionally charged words, etc. that suggests any bias of Sowetan towards any side of the spectrum.
2. Sowetan Endorsement of President
Endorsement of presidential candidates in elections comments strongly about a newspaper’s affiliation towards left or right. We will look out for candidates that Sowetan has endorsed in previous presidential elections to support Sowetan’s political bias.
3. Political leader’s Criticism of Sowetan
A political leader’s frequent criticism of Sowetan will also suggest about political inclination of the newspaper. In this section, we will observe if any political leader has criticised Sowetan in the past to support our arguments.
4. Allegations on Sowetan
Under this section, we will look out for any previous allegations against Sowetan by any political leader, party, organization or readers to support if Sowetan is biased towards left, right or center.
5. Media Bias Articles from Research Papers, Institutions, etc.
Several reputed fact checking and media bias analytics organizations conduct thorough surveys and research to write about Sowetan media bias. To substantiate our claims about Sowetan’s media bias inclination, we will cite these highly reliable sources and research from reputed organizations.
6. Audience of Sowetan
The audience of Sowetan also strongly suggests its media bias. Therefore, to further substantiate our claims, we will write about Sowetan’s audience whether they are democrats or republicans in their political affinities.
7. Sowetan’s controversial statements and tweets
Several newspapers make controversial statements or tweets on social media that reflect their affinity towards any ideology. We will flip through Sowetan social media accounts to look for clues that suggests Sowetan media bias.
8. Popular editors of Sowetan
Any popular person or editor associated with the Sowetan will also speak a lot about Sowetan’s media bias. We will analyze popular persons or editors of Sowetan that are directly or indirectly linked to any political party or ideology.
9. Sowetan CEO’s political views
In this section, we will look if Sowetan CEO supports or sponsors any political party directly or indirectly. We will look for his tweets, statements, opinion pieces, and controversies that will take us towards Sowetan’s media bias.
B. Sowetan Factual Reporting Analysis
After Sowetan media bias, we will write about Sowetan’s factual reporting, to check whether Sowetan is reliable or not. There are several parameters on which we will be analyzing Sowetan’s factual accuracies and will comment if Sowetan has ever published any false or misleading reports.
1. Sowetan’s misleading or false news articles
We will look for Sowetan’s previous history if it has ever intentionally or unintentionally published any fake news, false or misleading reports to influence audience. We will also write about false claims made by Sowetan in its Op-Ed or news section.
2. Popular Fact-Checking Organizations’ Analysis of Sowetan
Several fact-checking organizations including Politico, FactCheck, Snopes, Poynter, etc. conduct frequent fact-check on news articles published by newspapers. We will list down fact-checks that mentioned Sowetan to suggest if Sowetan has published false stories in the past or not.
3. Sources of Sowetan
Sources quotes by newspapers are also indicative of their reliability. We will check the sources quoted by Sowetan in their news stories to find out if Sowetan is factually reliable or not.
C. Sowetan Reliability Ratings by Fact-Checking Organizations
Several organizations across the globe independently conduct thorough research and studies on the pattern of news coverage by mainstream media. These websites study the articles published by the news media with the help of professionals and rate them on the basis of bias and reliability. Under this section, we will find out what other fact-checking organizations and media monitors have to say about Sowetan.
D. History of Sowetan
Sowetan is based out of South Africa and primarily published from South Africa . In this section, we will comment about the history of Sowetan including Sowetan founder, Sowetan publisher, Sowetan circulation and Sowetan headquarters.
E. Sowetan Funding & Ownership
Under this section, mediabuzz will write about Sowetan’s investors, stakeholders and owners to analyze how Sowetan’s media bias and factual reliability is affected.
F. Readers of Sowetan
Under this section, we will provide you approximate numbers of readers Sowetan enjoy. It will also have an age-wise, demographic-wise, gender-wise and political opinion-wise distribution of Sowetan audience.
G. Sowetan Media Bias and Credibility – Conclusion
After a thorough analysis of Sowetan on the above mentioned parameters, we will sum up if Sowetan is a left, center or right biased newspaper. Based on the analysis, we will offer a judgement on whether Sowetan is a reliable or unreliable publication when factual reporting is concerned.