On Ticker Picker every news article gets three labels, so you can judge a story before you have read it:
Political lean shows the article's own slant, from far left through center to far right. Financial news is often neutral, but taxes, regulation, energy and trade are topics where the angle can colour the story.
Company stance shows whether the article is written for the company, against it, or is neutral reporting. A glowing piece and a critical one about the same quarter can both be accurate - the stance tells you which side of the story you are reading.
Factuality, from very low to very high, shows how much of the article is checkable fact - figures, quotes, named sources - rather than opinion, speculation or promotion.
How the ratings are made
An AI reads each article's text - or, when the text cannot be fetched, its headline and summary - with the same instructions every time, and gives its assessment of all three labels - the way an attentive reader would sum it up. Because the same rules are used every time, the labels are consistent across thousands of articles and outlets, and they judge the article itself, not the outlet's reputation.
They are a quick, honest guide rather than a verdict: like any reader, an AI can misread irony, missing context or very specialised language, so read the article itself before acting on it.
How to use them
A strongly one-sided article with low factuality is worth reading with extra care. Several high-factuality articles pointing in the same direction carry more weight than one loud headline.
This content is general information, not investment advice.