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Ranked: Americans’ Favorite News Sites
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Key Takeaways
- BBC News has the highest approval rating among Americans at 51%.
- No other news website reaches 50% positive opinion among respondents.
- Yahoo News (48%) ranks second and is the top U.S.-based brand.
Americans get their news online from a wide mix of sources, including legacy newspapers, cable networks, digital platforms, and sports media brands.
This graphic ranks the 20 news websites with the highest positive opinion among Americans, based on YouGov polling from the fourth quarter of 2025. The results highlight a fragmented media landscape, with many well-known outlets clustered closely together in approval ratings.
London Surprises At The Top
Despite surveying American audiences, the top-ranked news website is BBC News, with 51% of respondents expressing a positive opinion.
The BBC is the United Kingdom’s public broadcaster. Founded in 1922, it has grown into one of the largest global news organizations.
The table below ranks the 20 news sites with the highest approval among Americans.
| Rank | News site | Share of people with a positive opinion about the news website |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | BBC News | 51% |
| 2 | Yahoo! | 48% |
| 3 | ESPN | 43% |
| 4 | NBC | 42% |
| 5 | NBC News | 42% |
| 6 | The New York Times | 41% |
| 7 | Forbes | 39% |
| 8 | CNN | 39% |
| 9 | CBS | 39% |
| 10 | MSN | 39% |
| 11 | NPR | 38% |
| 12 | Fox News | 38% |
| 13 | CNBC | 38% |
| 14 | Reuters | 35% |
| 15 | The Washington Post | 34% |
| 16 | Buzzfeed | 32% |
| 17 | NFL.com | 31% |
| 18 | Politico | 31% |
| 19 | Today.com | 30% |
| 20 | Business Insider | 30% |
BBC stands out as the only news website to surpass the 50% approval mark. No American outlet achieves the same level of broad popularity among respondents.
One possible explanation is distance from U.S. politics. As an international broadcaster, the BBC may avoid some of the domestic partisan divisions faced by American news organizations.
The Strong Domestic Contenders
Following BBC, 48% of Americans express a positive view of Yahoo News, making it the second-ranked site overall and the top U.S.-based brand.
Although Yahoo was founded in 1996, it only began producing original journalism in 2011. Before that, it primarily functioned as a news aggregator, republishing stories from other outlets—an approach that helped it build a large and familiar audience.
Further down the ranking, sports media brand ESPN (43%) outranks the newspaper of record, The New York Times (41%). The result highlights the broad appeal of sports coverage compared with more politically focused news.
The Cable News Kings Online
The Times is not the only major brand that ranks lower than expected in online popularity.
Well-known television networks such as CNN (39%) and Fox News (38%) have large cable audiences but receive more modest approval ratings among Americans online.
Growing political polarization in the U.S., along with ongoing debates over media bias, may help explain why these outlets generate more divided public opinion.
Learn More on the Voronoi App
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