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

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.

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.

1. Check the 2025 list against Apple Podcasts and each live feed.
2. Pull the Apple charts and read each charted show's feed for cadence.
3. Collect the ratings from Ad Fontes Media's public rating pages.
4. Merge and rate, then rebuild this page.

This is the guide I use before making a Citizen Spin essay. It is built around the access I have: a Hennepin County Library card, New York Public Library databases when I am in the city, and a few possible subscriptions. I publish it because the method is part of the promise. If you want to check my work, these are the same doors.

Per-topic workflow

Work from the original document outward, so every claim in the video traces to something a viewer can open. Aggregators and commentary come last, not first.

1. Frame the question. Write the issue as one question and list the three or four sub-questions a series would answer. Note what would change my mind.
2. Find the primary source. The bill, ruling, filing, dataset, transcript or report the story is about. If I cannot find it, that is itself a finding.
3. Map the coverage. Use Ground News or AllSides to see who covered it, who ignored it, and how the framing differs left, centre and right.
4. Read the deep reporting. Library databases for the paywalled papers, investigative outlets, and the wire copy that everyone else rewrote.
5. Find the experts. Academic search, think-tank reports from both sides, and polling. Record each expert's affiliation.
6. Collect real quotes. From transcripts only, with timestamps and links, never from memory or a model's summary.
7. Verify before recording. Fact-checkers, archived versions, and a second source for every number.
8. Log the sources. Keep a source list per topic so the series can be corrected as new information arrives.

Library access

The two libraries together cover nearly every paywalled national paper, the wire services, Congress, and the academic journals.

A full NYPL card requires living or working in New York State, so from Minnesota the NYPL resources below are ones I use on site during trips, with a visitor card; "From home" for NYPL rows assumes a full card. Neither library offers Nexis Uni or LexisNexis. Westlaw is in-library only at Hennepin.

Other routes worth knowing

• Media Cloud is a free archive of open-web news that charts how coverage of an issue rises and falls over time.
• University of Minnesota libraries let walk-in visitors use most licensed databases on library computers.
• Independent journalists can get discounted LexisNexis access through the Hatch Institute, or through the Institute for Nonprofit News for member newsrooms.

Also in Minneapolis: the Hennepin County Law Library is free to use in person and carries ProQuest Newsstand, the Star Tribune and Minnesota Lawyer.

Sources: Hennepin online resources, NYPL A-Z databases, NYPL remote news guide.

Primary sources

Start here for anything involving a law, a ruling, a number or a filing. All free unless noted. The video should link the document, not the article about it.

News and commentary across the spectrum

Use these to see who covered a story and how, then read the actual pieces through the library. Bias labels are a starting point, not a verdict; the rating services disagree with each other often enough that citing the rating itself is weak.

Outlets to check on every topic

• Investigative: ProPublica, The Marshall Project (criminal justice), Reveal, The Intercept
• Across the spectrum: Reason, The Dispatch, The Free Press, Tablet, The American Conservative, Jacobin, The Bulwark
• Wire copy: AP and Reuters, the version everyone else rewrote
• State and local: see State and local sources below

Research and expertise

For every expert quoted, record the affiliation and who funds it. Pair a think tank on one side with one on the other for the same question; the disagreement between them is usually the most honest map of the issue.

Polling

• Pew Research Center and Gallup for long-running series with published methods
• AP-NORC and Roper Center for archives of past polls
• Read the question wording and the sample before quoting a number

Think tanks by leaning. Labels follow how each describes itself and how it is generally placed.

Investigations, documents and records

Where the documents behind the stories live, and how to get the ones nobody has published yet.

Links rot, so each topic keeps the documents themselves, not just links.

State and local sources

Where to look when a story turns on one place: the laws, courts, public records, open data and newsrooms for the states and city I cover most.

Minnesota

Georgia

New York

California

Chicago and Illinois

Podcast and video transcripts

Which shows: the Citizen Spin podcast list, grouped by leaning as rated by outside watchdogs.

Quote rules

• Guests only, never hosts.
• Every quote has a speaker, their role, a timestamp, a link and a transcript file.
• No show used twice in one episode; long-form over short-form; do not default to the most popular shows.
• Timely segments use episodes from the last 14 to 21 days; evergreen ones can go older but say the date on screen.

Verification

The checks before anything goes on air, the same every episode, so corrections are about new facts rather than old mistakes.

• The number traces to a primary source, and the video links that source.
• A second, independent source gives the same number, or the discrepancy is stated on screen.
• Every quote has a transcript file, a timestamp and a link, and was checked by ear.
• Every expert is named with affiliation and funding.
• Every web page cited was saved to the Wayback Machine on the day of citing.
• The date of every source is said or shown.
• Retraction Watch was searched for any study relied on.
• Coverage was checked on Ground News or AllSides for what the other side said about the same facts.

Fact-checkers and media checks

• FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, AP Fact Check, Reuters Fact Check, and Google Fact Check Explorer to search them all. Each is one more source with its own reasoning, not a ruling.
• Images: Google Lens, TinEye.
• Video: the InVID verification plugin for keyframes and reverse search.

Corrections and predictions logs. Each topic keeps two logs. Corrections: date, what was wrong, what changed, and which essay was inserted into the playlist to say so. Predictions: date made, the prediction in one sentence, the essay, the date it resolved, and whether it was right, wrong or partly right. That second log is what makes the public scorecard honest.