CBN News

What you're reading

CBN News is the news division of the Christian Broadcasting Network, the evangelical-Christian broadcaster founded in 1960 by Pat Robertson (1930-2023) in Portsmouth, Virginia. CBN operates as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and is best known for The 700 Club, the long-running daily Christian-news-and-commentary program that Robertson hosted for decades and which now runs under Gordon Robertson and rotating co-hosts. The corporate footprint also includes Regent University (Robertson's accredited evangelical university in Virginia Beach) and global mission and humanitarian operations.

CBN News produces daily television newscasts (CBN NewsWatch), the long-form weekly Christian World News, the politically-focused Faith Nation, the Israel-and-Middle-East-focused CBN News Jerusalem desk (with on-the-ground Jerusalem reporting), and the CBNNews.com digital operation. Coverage centers on US politics from an evangelical-conservative angle, religious-liberty stories, abortion-and-reproductive-care policy, Israel and the Middle East from a Christian-Zionist perspective, persecuted-Christians coverage around the world, and movement-Christian responses to US cultural shifts. Audience is older, evangelical, Christian-Zionist, and concentrated in the South and Mountain West.

Ownership & funding

Christian Broadcasting Network (nonprofit; founded by Pat Robertson). Funded primarily through nonprofit + reader donations.

Nonprofit-plus-viewer-donations on an evangelical-Christian audience creates strong structural alignment between the editorial product and the donor base. Coverage that activates evangelical viewers to donate, share, and continue tuning in — religious-liberty cases, Israel-and-Middle-East stories from a Christian-Zionist frame, anti-abortion advocacy, persecuted-Christians reports — gets sustained heavy attention. There is no advertising chase to broaden into mainstream audiences and no commercial pressure toward neutral framings. The nonprofit status means no profit motive in the traditional sense, but the organization's broader mission (evangelism, Christian-cultural-influence work) shapes editorial priorities in ways a secular newsroom's funding wouldn't. The CBN umbrella also runs Regent University and global missions, which creates an explicit editorial-and-mission integration.

Where they land on the spectrum

nwsly's editorial team places CBN News at Right with a factuality rating of Mixed.

CBN News sits at Right because the editorial voice is openly and explicitly evangelical-conservative, with story selection and framing built around movement-Christian concerns and a sympathetic posture toward Republican leadership when that aligns with the network's religious priorities. Coverage of the Trump administration has been broadly favorable, particularly on judicial appointments, religious-liberty cases, Israel policy, and abortion-policy moves. Coverage of Democratic administrations is uniformly critical. Sustained beat focus on religious-liberty litigation, anti-abortion advocacy, Christian-school and homeschool policy, transgender-and-gender disputes in schools, and Israel-Palestine coverage from a Christian-Zionist frame. Headlines and segment titles use explicitly evangelical-Christian framings.

The pattern occasionally breaks when religious priorities diverge from movement-Republican positions — CBN has covered humanitarian-aid stories from a Christian-mission angle that lands closer to mainstream institutional consensus, and the Jerusalem desk's on-the-ground Israel reporting includes context that some Christian-Zionist commentary skips. Factuality sits at Mixed because while many stories are grounded in identifiable primary sources (court filings, official statements, on-the-ground footage), the editorial framing routinely treats matters of evangelical-Christian theological commitment (eschatology, prophecy interpretation) as relevant news context in ways that secular outlets would treat as opinion. Specific factual claims are generally accurate; the framing is what shapes the rating.

Editorial vs news side

CBN News does not maintain a clear separation between a straight news desk and an opinion section. The product is reported and broadcast from an openly stated evangelical-conservative perspective, with news items, commentary segments (Faith Nation, The 700 Club news block), and analytical pieces all sharing the same editorial worldview. There is no firewalled secular news desk operating under different editorial standards. The Right rating applies across the publication. Readers should treat the entire operation as Christian-broadcaster journalism with a stated religious and political mission, and pair it with secular reported sources when fact-checking specific claims. The closest analogs are Bott Radio Network and similar evangelical-broadcast news.

Why we include them in nwsly

News division of the Christian Broadcasting Network.

CBN News brings the evangelical-conservative perspective at scale — the worldview that drives a meaningful share of Republican-base politics on religious-liberty, abortion, Israel, and culture-war questions. nwsly uses it for visibility into how movement-Christian audiences are framing specific news cycles, and for the Jerusalem-desk Israel-and-Middle-East reporting that offers a Christian-Zionist perspective other US outlets don't cover. The Mixed factuality rating means we cite it for perspective and audience signal, not as a primary factual source. A balanced source mix requires representation of evangelical-conservative framings alongside secular Left, Center, and Right voices, clearly labeled.

Recent nwsly briefs citing CBN News

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