It looks like they are using affiliation as one measure. From the article: > we’ve mapped the locations of more than 400 partisan media outlets — often funded

It looks like they are using affiliation as one measure. From the article: > we’ve mapped the locations of more than 400 partisan media outlets — often funded and operated by government officials, political candidates, PACs, and political party operatives The Colorado Valley Guide links to LocalLabs in its footer. Not that we should trust the Wikipedia on anything political, but the article on LocalLabs redirects to Brian Timpone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Timpone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Timpone Further searches on Brian Timpone are strongly suggestive of his political affiliation and that it is managed at a national level. The Texas Signal is a different situation altogether. If my poking around is reliable, it may actually be a local news site that just happens to be open about its partisanship. I'm not going to go into the details since this poking around involved looking up registrar records (the records are public, but that doesn't imply the domain's owner is a public figure), yet at least one of the people involved appears to be politically active at the local and state level. It is easy to see how a Democrat would use this as a local news source if they are surrounded by partisan Republican news sources.