The Citizen Spin podcast list
The podcasts I draw guest quotes from, grouped by political leaning as rated by outside watchdogs, and checked against each show's live feed.
Citizen Spin quotes guests from shows across the spectrum. This list is where those shows come from. I do not rate leaning myself: every placement below comes from an outside rater, and every show was checked against its live feed on 2026-10-11. Guests are picked episode by episode while I research a topic, so the list does not try to say which shows book guests.
How the list is built
Two lists merged, checked, then rated by outside watchdogs.
Where the shows come from
- The Apple Podcasts top 200 in Politics, News Commentary, News and Government.
- My 2025 list of left, right and balanced shows, after removing the shows and IDs it got wrong.
How leaning is rated
- Ad Fontes Media first. Each show is rated by a panel of one left, one right and one center analyst, on a scale from -42 (most left) to +42 (most right). It is the only rater here with a center category.
- Media Matters for America second, only where Ad Fontes has no rating. Its March 2025 study sized 320 online shows by total following; Media Matters is a progressive watchdog and sorts shows only into left and right. Its numbers fill the Following column, in millions of followers across platforms.
What the columns mean
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Ad Fontes bias | -42 most left, 0 middle, +42 most right; links to the rating page |
| Reliability | Ad Fontes, 0 to 64; above 36 generally good, below 24 generally problematic |
| Per week | Episodes a week, from the feed: over the last 90 days, or over the span the feed covers if shorter |
| Apple chart | Best position across the four Apple charts |
| Following | Media Matters total following, February 2025 |
Left
Rated left of center by Ad Fontes beyond its "skews" band, or left-leaning by Media Matters. 56 active shows.
Lean left
Ad Fontes "skews left": opinion or framing tilts left, but within reach of the middle. 27 active shows.
Center
Ad Fontes "middle or balanced bias": minimal bias, balanced, or a centrist position. 35 active shows.
Lean right
Ad Fontes "skews right": opinion or framing tilts right, but within reach of the middle. 8 active shows.
| Show | Ad Fontes bias | Reliability | Per week | Apple chart | Following |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The World and Everything In It | +11.1 | 39.3 | 5.9 | #49 | |
| The Fox News Rundown | +7.6 | 40.2 | 15.3 | #52 | |
| The McCarthy Report | +7.2 | 43.4 | 1.0 | #130 | |
| Kennedy Saves the World | +8.0 | 36.0 | 4.7 | ||
| The Fifth Column | +6.4 | 32.9 | 2.3 | ||
| The Joe Rogan Experience | +9.3 | 18.7 | 3.3 | 39.9m | |
| The Sharyl Attkisson Podcast | +6.3 | 38.1 | 0.8 | ||
| What the Hell Is Going On | +11.6 | 34.6 | 1.0 |
Right
Rated right of center by Ad Fontes beyond its "skews" band, or right-leaning by Media Matters. 58 active shows.
Waiting for a rating
The most-charted active shows that no outside rater has placed yet. They stay off the lists above until one does.
Keeping it current
The checks are scripts, so the list can be rebuilt at any time.
- Check the 2025 list against Apple Podcasts and each live feed.
- Pull the Apple charts and read each charted show's feed for cadence.
- Collect the ratings from Ad Fontes Media's public rating pages.
- Merge and rate, then rebuild this page.