Frequently asked questions
Answers to common questions about Pano, how it works, and how to get support.
The basics
Pano is a news aggregator that helps you compare how left- and right-leaning outlets cover the day's biggest stories. We read 130+ news outlets across the spectrum, group their articles into stories, and for each one tell you what happened and how each side covered it, with links if you want more. Stories that run for days are collected into storylines, so you can follow them over time.
Pano was started by Sam Laber, a longtime builder of mission-driven consumer products. Alongside him is a small team of media outsiders seeking to bring back context and transparency to our news.
The daily newsletter is free for everyone. On the site, you can read 5 stories a month without an account and 10 a month as a free subscriber, and a story you open from a search or a shared link never counts. Unlimited stories are $5 a month.
Pano reads 130+ news outlets across the political spectrum. This includes left-leaning outlets like CNN, MS NOW, and The Atlantic; center outlets like the Associated Press, ABC News, and CBS News; and right-leaning outlets like Fox News, the New York Post, and The Daily Wire. We focus on outlets that cover U.S. news and politics. The Sources page lists every one, with its lean, its reliability, and how often it shows up in our stories.
Get in touch via our contact us page. We're quite responsive, and would love to hear from you!
Our approach
Bias and reliability ratings are assigned to each news outlet using a composite of publicly available data from organizations like Ad Fontes, AllSides, and Media Bias / Fact Check. These organizations regularly review and update their assessments to provide accurate, up-to-date information on the outlets we read.
Our stories are written with AI, from real reporting. For each story, AI reads a sample of the articles from across the spectrum and writes two things: a summary of what happened, and how each side covered it. The facts in the Summary come only from outlets rated reliable enough to state them; the lowest-rated outlets never contribute facts. "Left and right" describes how left- and right-leaning outlets framed the story and links to the articles it cites. We don't use AI to invent news or add opinions of its own: every story links to the articles behind it, so you can check them yourself.
They show who covered a story. On a story page, the long bar splits every article by the lean of its source: blue for left, gray for center, red for right, with the counts underneath. In lists and in the newsletter, a short bar sums that up: solid blue for Mostly Left, solid red for Mostly Right, gray for Balanced or Mostly Center, and half blue and half gray (or half gray and half red) when two sides carried the story together.
We classify each source as left, center, or right from its bias rating, then count a story's articles by side. When 60% or more come from the center, the story is Mostly Center. Otherwise we compare the left and the right: when one side has 75% or more of their articles, the story is Mostly Left or Mostly Right; 60% or more, Leans Left or Leans Right; anything closer is Balanced. When the two sides are within three articles of each other, the story is Balanced, because a handful of articles isn't enough to call it.
We check for new coverage four times a day, around 7am, noon, 5pm, and 9pm ET, and stories on the site update as it comes in. The evening pass settles the day's stories, and the best of them go out in the next morning's newsletter.
Support
Send us a note through the contact page and include the story's link. We read every message.
Log in and visit your Account page to turn the daily newsletter or product updates on or off. You can also unsubscribe with the link at the bottom of any newsletter.
Independence
Yes. No news outlet or interest group can influence our stories or our source ratings. No ads, no agenda: readers fund Pano.
Readers fund Pano. The newsletter is free, and $5 a month gets you every story on the site. We don't sell ads or your personal information, and we aren't beholden to any political interest group.
At the moment, we do not have any formal partnerships. At some point, we may work with like-minded independent organizations focused on media literacy and depolarization. Time will tell.
Still have a question? Get in touch.

