Bongino.com - Bias and Credibility - Media Bias/Fact Check

QUESTIONABLE SOURCE

A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no sourcing to credible information, a complete lack of transparency, and/or is fake news. Fake News is the deliberate attempt to publish hoaxes and/or disinformation for profit or influence (Learn More). Sources listed in the Questionable Category may be very untrustworthy and should be fact-checked on a per-article basis. Please note sources on this list are not considered fake news unless specifically written in the reasoning section for that source. See all Questionable sources.

Overall, we rate Bongino.com as questionable based on far-right-wing bias, promotion of propaganda, unproven conspiracies, a complete lack of transparency, and a few failed fact checks.

Detailed Report

Questionable Reasoning: Right Bias, Conspiracy, Propaganda, Lack of Transparency, Failed Fact Checks
Bias Rating: FAR RIGHT
Factual Reporting: MIXED
Country: USA
MBFC’s Country Freedom Rank: MOSTLY FREE
Media Type: Website
Traffic/Popularity: Medium Traffic
MBFC Credibility Rating: LOW CREDIBILITY

History

Founded in 2015, Bongino.com is the website for the Dan Bongino podcast show. Dan Bongino is an American conservative commentator, radio show host, author, former congressional candidate, and former Secret Service agent. He is a member of the Republican Party and ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2012, 2014, and 2016. The website does not feature an about page, mission statement, author name, or ownership, demonstrating a complete lack of transparency.

The only indication of what this website is about is through the tagline: Debunking Liberal Lies.

Read our profile on the United States government and media.

Funded by / Ownership

The website does not publicly disclose ownership, but Dan Bongino copyrights the website. Bongino.com generates revenue through advertising and the sale of branded merchandise.

Analysis / Bias

In review, Bongino.com publishes podcasts from Mr. Bongino’s shows and news articles supposedly written by staff. The focus of this review will be on their written news articles. News stories written by staff typically use moderately loaded emotional language that favors the right, like this: Clinton Email Scandal Not Over, New FBI Failure Uncovered. This story is appropriately sourced to The Hill and a memo by Senator Grassley. While story selection on this website always favors the right, they also have published misleading conspiracy stories such as claiming “this was an illegal coup attempt on the President of the United States.“

Further, podcasts often refer to the Spygate conspiracy, in which they opine that Obama and the FBI illegally spied on the Trump Campaign. This has never been collaborated to be illegal.

Lastly, Bongino frequently reports negatively on the Clintons. For example, they construct an unsubstantiated claim Bill Clinton flew on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane many times, which they assume was for illicit purposes. Another claim states that illegal immigrants cost taxpayers 100 billion dollars per year. This has been fact-checked by the right-leaning Check Your Fact, which rated it Unsubstantiated.

Bongino.com publishes poorly sourced, Right-biased content that often relies on unproven opinions.

Failed Fact Checks

The Russia investigation “was a coup. This was an attempted overthrow of the United States government.” – PANTS ON FIRE
DOES ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION COST THE US MORE THAN $100 BILLION A YEAR? – UNSUBSTANTIATED
Bernie Sanders flew on a private jet and served a lavish menu when traveling to Rome in April 2016. – MOSTLY FALSE
“the CGG CGG coding […] does not appear in nature” this and the furin cleavage site from the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein gene suggests the virus wasn’t transmitted from animals to humans – Inaccurate

Overall, we rate Bongino.com Questionable based on far-right-wing bias, promotion of propaganda, unproven conspiracies, a complete lack of transparency, and a few failed fact checks. (D. Van Zandt 8/24/2019) Updated (12/15/2023)

Source: https://bongino.com