LEFT BIAS
These media sources are moderate to strongly biased toward liberal causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by appealing to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports, and omit information that may damage liberal causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy. See all Left Bias sources.
- Overall, we rate Letters from an American as Left Biased based on consistent progressive framing and a critical stance toward the contemporary Republican Party. We rate factual reporting High due to proper sourcing of information and a clean fact-check record.
Detailed Report
Bias Rating: LEFT (-6.0)
Factual Reporting: HIGH (1.1)
Country: United States
MBFC’s Country Freedom Rating: MOSTLY FREE
Media Type: Website
Traffic/Popularity: High Traffic
MBFC Credibility Rating: HIGH CREDIBILITY
History
Letters from an American is a Substack newsletter launched by historian Heather Cox Richardson in 2019. The publication provides daily commentary on U.S. politics through a historical lens. Richardson explains on her About page that her goal is to connect current events to America’s past, echoing the approach of Hector St. John de Crèvecœur’s Letters from an American Farmer (1782).
Heather Cox Richardson is a professor of American history at Boston College and a specialist in the 19th century. She earned her Ph.D. in history from Harvard University and has published several well-regarded books, including The Death of Reconstruction (2001), West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War (2007), To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party (2014), and How the South Won the Civil War (2020). She frequently appears in the media to provide historical context on contemporary politics and is widely recognized for making history accessible to general audiences.
Read our profile on the United States media and government.
Funded by / Ownership
The newsletter is independently owned by Heather Cox Richardson and monetized through Substack subscriptions and reader support on the Substack platform.
Analysis / Bias
This is primarily an analysis/opinion by a single author rather than a straight-news outlet. Posts frequently critique Republican officeholders and conservative policy, frame events through Reconstruction/Gilded Age analogies, and emphasize threats to democratic norms, yielding a Left bias. Examples include sustained criticism of Trump-era and current GOP actions in the Sept. 6, 2025 entry and institutional reflections in the Sept. 11, 2025 entry.
Sourcing is generally mainstream (she frequently references reporting from outlets such as CNN, USA Today, C-SPAN, NBC News, AP, Reuters, the Washington Post, PBS, and others), but posts often summarize those reports with limited direct outbound hyperlinks inside the text, which can reduce immediate verifiability for readers. Overall: historically grounded, explanatory analysis with clear progressive framing.
Failed Fact Check
- None in the Last 5 years
Overall, we rate Letters from an American as Left Biased based on consistent progressive framing and a critical stance toward the contemporary Republican Party. We rate factual reporting High due to proper sourcing of information and a clean fact-check record. (D. Van Zandt 09/13/2025)
Source: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/
Last Updated on September 13, 2025 by Media Bias Fact Check
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Left vs. Right Bias: How we rate the bias of media sources