Upstate New York Media Bias Scorecard · one of 8 outlets scored
The Buffalo News Media Bias & Reporting Quality
The Buffalo News shows a near-zero net lean on party politics, at a partisan lean of -0.2. On worldview it shows a near-zero net lean, at an ideological lean of -0.3. The panel found no partisan lean at all in 96 of its 113 scored articles.
The Buffalo News is one of 8 outlets on the Upstate New York Media Bias Scorecard. A panel of three AI models, from three different companies, scored those 113 articles under rubric v0.4.0, with every outlet name and byline removed. Data as of . The numbers move as the sample grows.
What the results mean#
- Above the board median on evidence fairness (2.7 against 2.6), source independence (1.9 against 1.8), analysis labeling (3.8 against 3.7).
- Institutional posture leans toward deference (net -0.5, across 100 articles).
- Conservation-development framing nets near zero (0.4) with strength 0.9: its articles lean both ways and cancel.
These describe the sampled articles, not every story The Buffalo News publishes. Labels such as near-zero net lean are cutoffs on the number beside them, not statistical tests.
Its fingerprint#
Five lean axes, on the same -3 to +3 scale every outlet is drawn on. The marker is the net lean. The pale band spans the average swing per article in both directions.
Where it sits among Upstate New York's outlets#
~9.9 local articles/day · 113 scored
How to read this: left and right is ideological tilt. This market's outlets sit close together, so the map shows lean from -1 to +1 of the full -3 to +3 scale. Zoomed in, small gaps look large: each outlet's lean is averaged over 29 to 92 scored articles, so a gap of a few tenths may not hold as more are scored. Up is source independence, meaning official claims are tested rather than passed along. Bubble size is local articles per day: publishing volume, not audience reach. Dashed outlines mark the known-lean control and the out-of-market reference. The moose marks our own newsroom. Hover or tap any bubble to spotlight it and see its exact numbers. Tap again or click away to release it.
Its scores beside the board#
| Dimension | The Buffalo News | Board median |
|---|---|---|
| Partisan lean (-3 Democratic to +3 Republican) | -0.2 (near-zero net lean) | -0.3 (near-zero net lean) |
| Partisan lean strength (0-3, direction ignored) | 0.3 | 0.4 |
| Articles with no partisan lean detected | 96 of 113 | - |
| Ideological tilt (-3 progressive to +3 conservative) | -0.3 net, 0.5 strength (n=92) | -0.4 net, 0.6 strength |
| Institutional posture (-3 deference to +3 skepticism) | -0.5 net, 0.8 strength (n=100) | -0.5 net, 1 strength |
| Establishment-populist framing (-3 establishment to +3 populist) | -0.2 net, 0.6 strength (n=96) | -0.2 net, 0.7 strength |
| Conservation-development framing (-3 conservation to +3 development) | 0.4 net, 0.9 strength (n=21) | 0.2 net, 1.1 strength |
| Evidence fairness (0-4) | 2.7 | 2.6 |
| Sourcing (0-4) | 2.3 | 2.3 |
| Source independence (0-4) | 1.9 | 1.8 |
| Analysis labeling (0-4) | 3.8 | 3.7 |
| Language neutrality (0-4) | 3.5 | 3.5 |
| Articles sampled | 113 | - |
Same story, side by side#
No matched same-story comparison for The Buffalo News in this dataset yet.
Coverage and volume#
The Buffalo News publishes about 9.9 local stories a day. Of 239 articles read for places, 189 are set in an Upstate New York community, 11 are statewide, 12 are about places outside Upstate New York and 27 name no place. Most covered: Buffalo (92), Erie County (25), Amherst (15), Cheektowaga (10), Lockport (5), Niagara County (4).
Machine access#
This shows how The Buffalo News's site answers software, not whether a person can read it. These are facts about how The Buffalo News publishes, not scores. Blocking AI crawlers is a legitimate choice. When our crawler could not complete a check, the table says why.
| Paywall | RSS | Full-text RSS | AI crawlers blocked | Readable without JS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| metered | unreachable from our collection point (HTTP 429) | no | 12 | not checked (the site rate-limited us today) |
Why it is on the board#
Buffalo's daily newspaper.
Articles read through a web browser since , on a volunteer's home connection, because our crawler is refused. Its site host limits how often any one address may read, and that limit is shared across every site the host runs, so our crawler is turned away on many days. The crawler keeps reading it on the days it answers. Last read .
Reach context:
How this is measured#
Three models from three vendors score each article against a published rubric, with outlet names and bylines removed first. An outlet's number is the mean of its per-article panel medians. Lean measures direction only, never quality. The full method, its validation checks and every outlet's numbers are on the Upstate New York Media Bias Scorecard. The data is free to reuse with credit, under CC BY 4.0.
The other outlets on the board#
WXXI News · Spectrum News 1 · Investigative Post · Rochester Beacon · Central Current · WAER · syracuse.com
Back to the Upstate New York Media Bias Scorecard · Coverage map