The verb in the headline is telling you what the writer thinks

Quick answer: Underline the verbs that attribute speech, the labels attached to people, and every adjective that's doing a job a fact should do. Then rewrite the sentence in the other side's vocabulary. If the claim falls apart or changes meaning, you've found the writer's position.

Start with "said"

"Said" is the neutral verb. Everything else is a choice.

Here's a made-up example, constructed for this piece and not drawn from any real story. A city councilman tells a meeting the budget is short by two million dollars. Three headlines could cover it:

• Councilman says budget is short $2 million
• Councilman admits budget is short $2 million
• Councilman claims budget is short $2 million

Same event. "Admits" tells you he was hiding it and got cornered. "Claims" tells you nobody should believe him. "Says" tells you he spoke. Only one of the three reports what happened. The other two report what the writer wants you to feel about it.

Other verbs to watch: slams, blasts, rips, torches, brushes off, doubles down, insists, boasts, concedes, dodges. Every one of them is a verdict.

And they run on every side. Read a week of headlines from outlets you like and outlets you can't stand. You'll find "slams" in both, aimed at different people.

Check who gets a label

This is the test most readers miss, because it's about what's absent.

Watch how people and groups are tagged. If one side's politicians are "far-right" or "hardline" and the other side's are just "Democrats" or "lawmakers," the writer has told you which side is the default and which is the deviation. Flip it and it works the same way. A piece that calls one party's members "radical left" and the other's plain "Republicans" is doing the identical thing.

Ask two questions:

1. Does each side get a label of the same strength?
2. If only one side gets one, why?

Sometimes the label is earned and accurate. A group that describes itself as socialist can fairly be called socialist. But earned labels get applied evenly. When the intensity only runs one direction, that's tone.

Learn the paired vocabularies

Some topics come with two dictionaries, and the word you pick signs your name to a side.

• Estate tax / death tax. The first is the formal name. The second is the label its opponents use because it frames the tax as a penalty for dying.
• Undocumented immigrant / illegal alien. One foregrounds the paperwork. The other foregrounds the law that was broken.
• Gun control / gun safety / gun rights. Each phrase names a different subject of the debate: the government, the outcome, or the citizen.
• Pro-life / anti-abortion. The movement calls itself the first. Plenty of newsrooms prefer the second. Each choice tells you who the outlet is listening to.

We're on one side of several of these and we say so openly. That's the point of labeled commentary. But notice what happens when you're reading someone else's piece: the vocabulary lets you place them before you reach the argument. Learn the pairs for the topics you care about. You'll stop being surprised.

Look for the actor who disappears

Passive voice is where blame goes to hide.

"Mistakes were made." "Shots were fired." "A man was killed during an encounter with police." Each of these removes the person who did the thing. Sometimes the passive is honest, because the actor really isn't known yet. When the actor is known and still missing, ask why.

Now run it the other direction. Active voice can load a sentence just as hard. "Police killed a man" and "a suspect died after officers responded" describe the same event with opposite emphasis. Read both and ask which facts each one left out.

Count the small words

The quietest signals are tiny.

• Just, only, merely. "He just wanted to talk." "Only a few protesters." These shrink something without proving it's small.
• Even, still, yet. "Even his allies say." "She still refuses." They suggest something should have happened by now.
• So-called, self-described, alleged. Used correctly, they track what hasn't been proven. Used as a sneer, they cast doubt on something that has.
• Scare quotes. A word in quotation marks that nobody said. The writer is telling you to roll your eyes.
• Intensifiers. "Shocking," "stunning," "disastrous," "historic." If the facts were any of those, the facts would show it.

Notice whose sources get a motive

Reporters introduce sources, and the introduction is a tell.

One expert is "a professor of economics at a state university." Another is "a think tank funded by billionaires." Both descriptions might be true. Does the second get the same scrutiny when it's on the writer's side? Check whether every source who disagrees with the piece arrives with a motive attached, while every source who agrees arrives with credentials.

For how to weigh the sources themselves, read When an Anonymous Source Is Worth Believing, and When It Isn't.

The swap test

This is the one that does the real work.

Take a paragraph that irritated you or pleased you a little too much. Rewrite it with the opposite team's vocabulary, same facts, and read it out loud.

If a story on a conservative governor "slashes" a program, try "trims." If a story on a liberal mayor "invests" in something, try "spends." Sometimes the sentence survives and the tone was just style. Sometimes it collapses, because the verb was carrying the argument and the facts weren't.

Now swap the parties. Put the other side's name in the same sentence with the same verb. Would you accept it? If you'd cry foul when your side gets "admits" but shrug when theirs does, that's worth knowing about yourself.

What tone can't tell you

Here's the trap in all of this.

A loaded piece can be accurate. A flat, careful piece can be wrong. Tone tells you where the writer stands. It doesn't tell you whether the numbers check out. An outlet you trust and agree with will still pick its verbs, and the fact that it agrees with you is exactly why you'll stop noticing.

Opinion is also supposed to have tone. A columnist who "slams" a policy has done nothing wrong, as long as the piece is labeled as opinion and the facts underneath are sound. Run this test hardest on straight news, where the reader is promised a report and not a position.

So use tone as a signal to read slower, not as a reason to throw something out. Find the position, set it aside, and then check the claims. For a four-step way to do that, try the four questions an editor asks before a story runs. To see which outlets handle it when they get it wrong, see How to Tell Which Outlets Actually Own Their Mistakes.

Do it once tonight

Pick one article on a topic you feel strongly about, preferably from a source you like. Print it or open it in a document. Highlight every verb of speech, every label and every small word from the lists above.

Then do the same to a piece from the other side on the same story. Lay them next to each other.

You'll find the argument has been going on in the vocabulary the whole time. You just weren't reading that part.