Apple News ‘even more politically lopsided’ under new CEO John Ternus, study finds
FIRST ON FOX — Apple News "has taken a decidedly leftist turn" after one month under new CEO John Ternus, according to a study conducted by the Media Research Center (MRC).
The MRC, a conservative media watchdog, examined Apple’s news aggregator during the final month of former CEO Tim Cook’s tenure and compared its content during the first month since Ternus took control of the tech behemoth on Sept. 1.
The study found that Apple News, which comes preinstalled on every iPhone in America, pushed stories from left-leaning outlets 65% of the time compared to just 2% from right-leaning outlets in August when Cook was still in charge. The news aggregator increased the percentage of stories from leftist outlets it promoted to 67% and decreased the percentage of stories from right-leaning outlets it shared to less than a percentage point in September, according to the MRC.
"Under new CEO John Ternus, Apple News has become even more politically lopsided. In September, just three stories from right-leaning outlets made Apple News’s top morning feed. Three," MRC President David Bozell told Fox News Digital.
"Apple has no shortage of conservative journalism to choose from. Apple is choosing to exclude conservative voices and deny its audience anything resembling a balanced news diet," Bozell continued. "For one of the most powerful companies in the world, such blatant discrimination is simply indefensible."
MRC Free Speech America Director Michael Morris, who conducted the study, noted, "Apple News’s competitors Google News and Microsoft’s MSN did not follow Apple’s left turn" over the past month.
"Microsoft’s MSN actually reduced the percentage share of stories it promoted from both left-leaning and right-leaning outlets. Meanwhile, Google News shared roughly the same percentage of stories from left-leaning outlets from one month to the next, while slightly reducing the share of right-leaning stories," Morris wrote when recapping the findings.
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Critics of Apple News have pointed to Lauren Kern, the app's editor-in-chief who previously served as the executive editor of New York Magazine and deputy editor of New York Times Magazine. A glowing 2018 feature from The New York Times reported that she leads a group of former journalists who are "selecting the news that tens of millions of people will read."
Because of the tremendous reach of the Apple News app, the Times reported that Kern "quietly became one of the most powerful figures in English-language media." In 2020, Apple boasted that its app "draws over 100 million monthly active users in the US, UK, Australia and Canada."
Apple News has long been accused of having a liberal bias, and Fox News Digital reported earlier this year that many of the company’s top executives and board members have made substantial contributions to Democrats in various election cycles. Republican lawmakers have expressed concern and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., sent a February letter to Cook seeking answers.
"If Americans thought a change in leadership at one of Silicon Valley’s biggest tech companies would change its trajectory, they’d be right. Apple has indeed changed since its new CEO John Ternus has taken the reins: its news app has gotten worse," Morris wrote.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Morris noted that a previous MRC study on Apple News caught the attention of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Andrew Ferguson, who also sent a letter to Cook warning that Apple News could be in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices. Shortly afterward, "Apple News modestly adjusted its representation of stories from right-leaning outlets from 0% up to a still lowly 2% among its top 20 morning stories," according to the MRC.
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"Apple News largely maintained the status quo during the last full month (August) with Cook at the helm. During that month, Apple News promoted 381 stories from leftist outlets (65%), 191 from center outlets (33%) and 13 from right-leaning outlets (2%), out of 585 stories from AllSides-rated media outlets," Morris wrote.
"But as Ternus took control, a dramatic leftward shift occurred on the news app. Put plainly, the percentage of stories from left-leaning outlets went up, and the percentage of stories from right-leaning outlets went down," he continued. "In September, Apple News promoted 383 stories from leftist outlets (67%), 186 from center outlets (32.5%) and only three from right-leaning outlets (.5%), out of 572 stories from AllSides-rated media outlets."
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Ternus is an Apple veteran who has worked at the company since 2001, primarily in its product design and hardware engineering teams. He joined the executive team in 2021, and his tenure has involved designing and managing the hardware for Mac, iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch and Airpods, while he also oversaw the transition to in-house Apple Silicon chips across most of its major product lines.
Fox News Digital’s Joseph A. Wulfsohn and Eric Revell contributed to this report.