Apple News Excluded Right-Leaning Outlets From 98% of Top Stories in January

In January 2026, as the primary election cycle intensified, Apple News served 145 million active users a curated feed that almost entirely omitted conservative perspectives. A February 2026 study by the Media Research Center (MRC) found that right-leaning outlets—including The Daily Wire, National Review, and Breitbart—were excluded from the 'Top Stories' module in 98% of analyzed instances. Despite these outlets maintaining high independent engagement metrics, they received zero placements in the platform’s most-viewed section throughout the month.

While Apple publicly attributes its feed to neutral algorithms, the process is heavily managed by a human editorial team. Editor-in-Chief Lauren Kern oversees staff who manually select featured content and whitelist sources. Internal documentation leaked to The New York Post on February 10, 2026, reveals that Apple classifies several prominent conservative organizations as 'unreliable.' This internal tag triggers algorithmic suppression, ensuring their reporting rarely reaches the general user base.

The suppression follows a clear financial and political trail. Apple takes a 30% cut of subscriptions sold through Apple News+, creating a direct incentive for SVP of Services Eddy Cue to prioritize 'legacy' publishers like The New York Times that participate in Apple’s revenue-sharing ecosystem. By burying independent or right-leaning outlets that drive traffic to their own external sites, Apple maximizes user retention within its own paid wall. This corporate strategy is mirrored in the company's political spending; in the 2024-2025 cycle, Apple’s PAC and employees directed over $12 million to political candidates, with more than 90% of those funds going to Democratic causes.

This editorial control represents a vertical monopoly on information. By acting as the 'last mile' gatekeeper for 145 million iPhone users, Apple effectively picks the winners and losers of the media marketplace. The 'Quality Standards' Apple cites as a filter are proprietary and non-public, allowing the company to frame partisan curation as a neutral fight against misinformation.

For the average citizen, this means the device in their pocket is no longer a neutral window into the world. It is a curated reality that starves dissenting voices of the traffic and ad revenue needed to survive. When one corporation determines the visibility of political reporting, it doesn't just manage a feed—it manages the boundaries of public thought, narrowing the diversity of opinion required for a functioning democracy.