Cal Matters media bias and reliability
The rating organisations do not give Cal Matters one shared verdict in the records we hold. Their published ratings are AllSides: Centre; Ad Fontes Media: Leans left; Media Bias/Fact Check: Leans left. We have seen it on 12 published stories of ours.
The short answers
Is Cal Matters biased?
The rating organisations do not give Cal Matters one shared verdict in the records we hold. Their published ratings are AllSides: Centre; Ad Fontes Media: Leans left; Media Bias/Fact Check: Leans left. An outlet rating describes a broad pattern in its output, not every article it publishes.
Is Cal Matters left or right?
The rating organisations do not give Cal Matters one shared verdict in the records we hold. Their published ratings are AllSides: Centre; Ad Fontes Media: Leans left; Media Bias/Fact Check: Leans left. In the three-way grouping used on story pages, that puts it under Left.
Is Cal Matters reliable?
The factual-reliability assessments we hold for Cal Matters are Media Bias/Fact Check: High factuality. These are outlet-level assessments, not a guarantee that every report is correct.
What Cal Matters has been covering
Our account of each story, written from every outlet that ran it, with Cal Matters’s own report linked underneath.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed an executive order mandating state agencies to develop recommendations for strengthening AI safety laws. The order calls for a team of experts to propose new regulations within two months, potentially including a 'kill switch' for AI programs.
Cal Matters reported it asNewsom orders California agencies to develop new AI safety plans after rejecting tougher law (opens Cal Matters in a new tab)
Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong Blocks Warrantless Immigration Arrests in Southern California
Trust 42U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong has blocked immigration officers from making warrantless arrests in Southern California unless they determine a person is likely to escape. The order applies to the Central District of California and follows a lawsuit by immigrant advocacy groups.
Cal Matters reported it asJudge: Immigration agents must stop the way they’re conducting warrantless arrests (opens Cal Matters in a new tab)
Nine of California's 21 public school police forces have acquired military-grade equipment, including semi-automatic rifles. A 2021 state law requires annual disclosure of such inventories, but some departments have not complied, with five failing to report by the deadline.
Cal Matters reported it asCalifornia K-12 schools with military-style rifles don’t always disclose them as law requires (opens Cal Matters in a new tab)
The Supreme Court has rejected the Trump administration's request to enforce new U.S. Postal Service mail ballot regulations ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The court's order leaves in place a lower court injunction blocking the rules.
Cal Matters reported it asU.S. Supreme Court rejects Trump's mail-in voting limits as November election nears (opens Cal Matters in a new tab)
The Supreme Court has rejected the Trump administration's request to enforce new U.S. Postal Service mail ballot regulations ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The court's order leaves in place a lower court injunction blocking the rules.
Cal Matters reported it asFaced with Uncertainty About the Rules for Mail Voting, We Explain How Californians Can Prepare to Vote in November (opens Cal Matters in a new tab)
California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed 13 new laws designed to shield minors from the potential harms of social media and AI chatbots. The legislation includes penalties for companies found negligent and restrictions on addictive online content.
Cal Matters reported it asCalifornia enacts laws restricting chatbots and banning teens from ‘addictive’ social media (opens Cal Matters in a new tab)
On 9 September 2026, a coalition of twenty U.S. states and the District of Columbia filed two lawsuits accusing the Trump administration of illegally weakening the Endangered Species Act. The suits target rules that narrow habitat protections and reduce safeguards for newly threatened species.
Cal Matters reported it asCalifornia sues over Trump's changes to Endangered Species Act, arguing they threaten habitat (opens Cal Matters in a new tab)
A federal judge has lifted a nationwide injunction blocking President Trump's executive order on mail-in voting. The Supreme Court ruled a previous challenge was premature, but states have filed a new lawsuit arguing the USPS rule interferes with election administration.
Cal Matters reported it asCalifornia sues to block Trump's mail-in voting rules just days after loss at Supreme Court (opens Cal Matters in a new tab)
The US Agriculture Department plans to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, removing logging restrictions on over 40 million acres of national forest. The move, announced by Secretary Brooke Rollins, aims to reduce wildfire risks but is opposed by environmental groups who say it will increase them.
Cal Matters reported it asForest fires follow roads. The Trump administration wants to build more (opens Cal Matters in a new tab)
California Resources Corp. started injecting carbon dioxide at Elk Hills in May, the first commercial project of its kind in the state. Lawmakers ordered regulators to write rules nearly four years ago, but none have been adopted, leaving federal oversight in place.
Cal Matters reported it asAn oil field became California’s first carbon vault. Who's responsible if something goes wrong? (opens Cal Matters in a new tab)
California lawmakers are unlikely to extend temporary rules allowing craft distillers to ship spirits directly to customers, after lobbying by the wine industry, Teamsters and alcohol distributors. The groups spent over $1 million this year to block the measure, which expires at year-end.
Cal Matters reported it asCalifornia craft liquor delivery is about go away thanks to big money lobbying (opens Cal Matters in a new tab)
California lawmakers are advancing legislation to regulate AI chatbots marketed as therapy, following concerns over unchecked use in mental healthcare. The bill, authored by Sen. Steve Padilla, would ban companies from advertising chatbots as therapy and require licensed professional review for therapeutic decisions.
Cal Matters reported it asAs AI 'therapists' dish out advice, California lawmakers try to set some limits (opens Cal Matters in a new tab)
The Trump administration is preparing an overhaul of Head Start that would remove federal quality standards for the preschool programme serving low-income children. Reports attribute the plan to anonymous sources and say it would allow states to set their own rules.
Cal Matters reported it asTrump administration threatens to gut Head Start rules, affecting 70,000 kids in California (opens Cal Matters in a new tab)
Who says so
3 organisations have published a rating for this outlet, in their own words. Where they disagree, the disagreement is the useful part and it is left standing.
How reliably it reports fact
A rating of the newsroom in general, by others, and a different thing from the Trust score we publish on each story, which judges one piece of reporting.
Very high factuality
- Media Bias/Fact CheckhighCheck it
Who owns it
- CalMattersIndependentdirect owner
Where it publishes from
- Publishes from
- Sacramento, Sacramento County, California, United States
- Official site
- calmatters.org
- Seen publishing on
- calmatters.org
- Access
- Free to read
What we have seen ourselves
Counted across the stories this site has published, which is the only denominator a reader can check: every one of them has a page, and every page lists the reports it was written from.
- Stories
- 12
- Reports listed
- 13
- We could read
- 1
- First seen
- 5 August 2026
12 of those reports were paywalled or blocked to us. Our reading of this outlet is built on the 1 we could open, not on everything it published.
On 1 of those stories, outlets rated left were largely absent from the coverage and Cal Matters ran the story anyway.
Across the 12 stories of ours where at least three of the reports we listed carried a time, we logged no report earlier than Cal Matters’s on 4 of them. Overall it filed a median of 7 hours after the earliest report we logged.
Measured 19 September 2026. Last seen in a coverage list 19 September 2026. Ratings pulled 8 September 2026.
Other outlets rated the same way
Publishers carrying the same published leaning as Cal Matters, also publishing from United States, ordered by how often we have seen them on a story. Sharing a rating is not the same as being alike.
Think this page is wrong?
The leanings above are published by AllSides, Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias/Fact Check, and we republish them rather than make them. If you think one is misapplied, the strongest place to say so is with the organisation that made it, and every verdict here links to their page.
What we are responsible for is everything else: the ownership chain, where Cal Matters publishes from, which of our stories we have listed it on, and whether we have the right publisher at all. Tell us what is wrong and an editor reads it.
Report something wrong on this page
Anything we correct is written up in the public corrections log. We do not publish reader votes as a rating, because an unattributed rating is the thing this site exists to argue against.
Every rating on this page is a named third party’s published work, republished with its author and, where one exists, a link to it. Our own coverage record is the section we measure ourselves. Neither is a judgement of any individual report: those are scored story by story, and the reasoning is on our methodology page.