Popular Mechanics media bias and reliability
Ad Fontes Media places Popular Mechanics in the centre. We have seen it on 6 published stories of ours.
The short answers
Is Popular Mechanics biased?
Ad Fontes Media places Popular Mechanics in the centre. An outlet rating describes a broad pattern in its output, not every article it publishes.
Is Popular Mechanics left or right?
Ad Fontes Media places Popular Mechanics in the centre. In the three-way grouping used on story pages, that puts it under Centre.
Is Popular Mechanics reliable?
The factual-reliability assessments we hold for Popular Mechanics are Ad Fontes Media: Very high factuality; Media Bias/Fact Check: High factuality. These are outlet-level assessments, not a guarantee that every report is correct.
What Popular Mechanics has been covering
Our account of each story, written from every outlet that ran it, with Popular Mechanics’s own report linked underneath.
Archaeologists have uncovered evidence in a Siberian tomb suggesting cannabis was used for psychoactive purposes at least 2,800 years ago. This finding potentially predates similar documented use in China by 300 years, though some experts express skepticism.
Popular Mechanics reported it asArchaeologists Drug-Tested a 2,800-Year-Old Nomad—and Found the World’s Earliest Stoner (opens Popular Mechanics in a new tab)
US President Donald Trump met with his national security team to discuss resuming military operations against Iran. A potential date of November 9 has been cited, with reports noting the new moon would provide favorable conditions for such action.
Popular Mechanics reported it asIran Is Handing Out Iodine Pills Near Pickaxe Mountain. Here’s What a Nuclear Strike There Would Actually Do. (opens Popular Mechanics in a new tab)
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance is investigating a potential security issue on its platform. Stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle have frozen billions of dollars in assets connected to the incident, while Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao stated user funds remain safe.
Popular Mechanics reported it asCrypto Was Supposed to Be Unhackable. So How Did North Korea Just Steal $6 Billion in 20 Minutes? (opens Popular Mechanics in a new tab)
Hassan Kariem, a teacher at Wesley International Academy, died after falling from the Goliath roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia. Police stated he was ejected from the ride and struck other patrons before falling. Six Flags temporarily closed nine similar roller coasters.
Popular Mechanics reported it asA Tragic Death at Six Flags Has Exposed a Terrifying Truth: Roller Coasters Have a Hidden Safety Loophole (opens Popular Mechanics in a new tab)
Jonathan, a 194-year-old Aldabra giant tortoise, has had his genome sequenced by scientists studying the secrets of his longevity. The research identified genetic changes associated with DNA repair and telomere function, offering potential insights into aging.
Popular Mechanics reported it asAn 194-Year-Old Tortoise Named Jonathan Is an Anti-Aging Marvel—and We Finally Know His Secret (opens Popular Mechanics in a new tab)
Analysis of prehistoric human remains from Indonesia has revealed evidence of habitual drug use dating back approximately 25,000 years. This predates agriculture and suggests humans may have been consuming psychoactive substances much earlier than previously understood.
Popular Mechanics reported it asScientists Found Evidence of the World’s Oldest Drug Habit in 25,000-Year-Old Teeth (opens Popular Mechanics in a new tab)
Who says so
One organisation has published a rating for this outlet. Where they disagree, the disagreement is the useful part and it is left standing.
- Ad Fontes MediacenterCheck it
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
Who owns it
- Hearst CommunicationsMedia Conglomeratedirect owner
Where it publishes from
- Publishes from
- New York, New York, United States
- Official site
- popularmechanics.com
- Seen publishing on
- popularmechanics.com
- Access
- Free to read
- Wikipedia
- Entry
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
- 6
- Reports listed
- 6
- We could read
- 0
- First seen
- 14 August 2026
6 of those reports were paywalled or blocked to us. Our reading of this outlet is built on the 0 we could open, not on everything it published.
A blindspot is measured against one side of the spectrum. Popular Mechanics is rated centre, so there is no side for it to be counted against and we publish no figure here.
Across the 6 stories of ours where at least three of the reports we listed carried a time, another outlet was always ahead of Popular Mechanics: its report arrived a median of 5 days after the earliest one we logged.
Measured 14 November 2026. Last seen in a coverage list 12 November 2026. Ratings pulled 13 November 2026.
Other outlets rated the same way
Publishers carrying the same published leaning as Popular Mechanics, 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 Popular Mechanics 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.