Online-native

Where does Blast sit?

On the FrIdéo scale, Blast scores −1.65, which places it in the "far left" band and 2th of 30. The 95% confidence interval runs from −2.39 to −0.91. That interval excludes zero: placing this outlet on its side of the panel is supported by the data, not just by its point position. 4 of the 9 evidence families cover it directly, which is few: a meaningful share of the score comes from the founding-tradition prior rather than from direct measurement.

−1.65
FrIdéo score: −2.39 … −0.91
95% confidence interval: far left
Band: 2 / 30
Rank

What each source of evidence says

FrIdéo does not measure ideology once. It fuses nine independent families of evidence, each standardised across the same thirty-outlet panel. A blank row means that family reports nothing for this outlet, which is not the same as reporting zero.

Evidence family	Position
D0Ownership ideology	−1.51
D3Hyperlink and follower network position	−1.88
D2Survey perceived ideology	no data
D6aStated editorial orientation	no data
D6bThird-party encyclopedic profiling	−1.67
D1Broadcast guest ideological bias	no data
D4Media Bias Fact Check rating	no data
D8Ad Fontes Media bias rating	no data
D7Distancing-aware lexical score	−1.08

What placed it there

The signed contribution of each evidence group to the final score. These sum, up to rounding, to the score above.

Ownership−0.32
Academic and network evidence−0.40
Third-party ratings0.00
Editorial content−0.59
Founding-tradition prior−0.32

Ownership

Final owner: Reader-funded independent

Not present in the ownership dataset; D0 was assigned from documented identity as a reader-funded independent.

Ownership attributions follow the FrIdéo ownership family, which draws on the Acrimed / Le Monde diplomatique "Médias français : qui possède quoi ?" mapping distributed as a community dataset on data.gouv.fr, cross-checked against Cagé (2017), with press coverage used only for changes of control after 2023.

Nearest outlets on the scale

The outlets immediately either side of this one. Where the intervals overlap, the ordering between them is not something this scale can resolve.

To the left

L'Humanité

To the right

Mediapart

All thirty outlets →

How the score is built

Nine evidence families are standardised across this panel, weighted by how much independent information each carries, and fused into one continuous position, with outlets covered by few families shrunk toward a founding-tradition prior. The scale is zero-mean and unit-variance by construction across these thirty outlets, so a score is a statement about where an outlet sits relative to this panel and not an absolute ideological coordinate.

How to read this responsibly

Zero on this scale is the mean of these thirty outlets, not a neutral point in French politics. An outlet at zero is average for this panel, which is a different claim.
Scores are comparable within this panel only. They cannot be compared against a scale built from a different set of outlets without re-standardising.
Few families cover this outlet directly, so its position leans more than most on the founding-tradition prior. Treat the point estimate with more caution than its neighbours.

Read the full FrIdéo method Download the scores (CSV)Download the scores (JSON)

Common questions

Is Blast left wing or right wing?

On the FrIdéo scale, Blast scores −1.65, placing it in the "far left" band and 2th of 30 French news outlets. Its 95% confidence interval (−2.39 to −0.91) excludes zero, so placing it on that side of the panel is supported by the data.

Who owns Blast?

The final owner used by the model is: Reader-funded independent. The attribution follows the Acrimed / Le Monde diplomatique "Médias français : qui possède quoi ?" mapping, distributed as a community dataset on data.gouv.fr and cross-checked against Julia Cagé (2017).

How is Blast's orientation measured?

FrIdéo fuses nine independent families of evidence, among them ownership, position in the hyperlink network, survey-perceived orientation, editorial charters, two rating panels and a lexical score computed from the text. 4 of those nine cover Blast directly. Each family is standardised across the same thirty-outlet panel, then the positions are fused into a single continuous score.

Is Blast further right than Mediapart?

Mediapart is the outlet immediately to the right of Blast on the scale. The two positions are close and their confidence intervals overlap substantially: the ordering between these two is not something this scale can resolve. Comparing outlets far apart on the scale is reliable; separating two neighbours is not.

How to cite

Cite the paper. The scale, the method and this outlet’s position all come from it, and a citation to a web page is not something a reviewer can check or a bibliography can resolve.

@inproceedings{sobhy2026frideo,
  title     = {{FrIdéo}: French News Outlet Ideology Scoring via Multi-Source
               Evidence Fusion and Distancing-Aware Lexical Scoring},
  author    = {Sobhy, Amr},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of ICNLSP 2026},
  year      = {2026}
}

If you are citing the numbers as data rather than the method, cite the released dataset as well. It carries the scores, intervals and per-family evidence for all thirty outlets under CC BY 4.0.

Dataset on data.gouv.fr Dataset on Kaggle

Scores from FrIdéo v1.0