How News Portals Serve Up Political Stories (Google News Right Wing Bias)

[Democat]

In addition to mainstream news outlets from both sides of the political fence (say, NPR and The Washington Post on the left and The Washington Times and New York Post on the right), there were 34 anti-Kerry screeds from the second-tier websites. There was only one pro-Kerry item, from CommonDreams.org.

Far from an isolated example, the pattern has repeated itself throughout the past month. Small conservative Web sites such as Useless-Knowledge, Men's News Daily, Michnews and ChronWatch turn up in disproportionate numbers when clicking on news about John Kerry. Useless-Knowledge, for instance, made up 12 of the first 100 results for John Kerry on Friday, and 11 of the first 100 results Saturday.

By contrast, a search on George Bush or George W. Bush typically results in a fairly neutral, evenly balanced set of results from both sides of the political spectrum, with many of the same small conservative sites showing up to sing the president's praises.

http://ojr.org/ojr/technology/1095977436.php

If you read this long article, it shows how right wing sites have specialists who help them skew Google News to the right. The bias is not minor, it's extreme. There are stats and quotes in the article that show how and what the right wing opinion sites are doing to spin Google news results to the far right.

This problem has been brought up on DU before, but this article shows proof of the bias that Google News has toward right wing news sources.

We need to make sure Google fixes this problem!

[Zorra]

1. Finally, this is being indisputably proven, and is out in the open.

Google News is so pro-RW republican it is sickening. Google News disgusts me on a daily basis.

But then again, almost all the news we get in the US is so biased towards the new "nazi republican" party it is sickening.

Goebels would be so proud if he could see how the example he set in Nazi Germany had been taken to such RW propagandistic extremes in the fascist United States, 2004.

Really proud.

God Bless America, she really needs it in these dark times. Bu$h and the republicans have polluted every aspect of our world, especially the media, with their lies, filth, and corruption.

[gavodotcom]

2. google's just stupid, not evil

I don't use Google News, so I wouldn't know. I stick with good ol' AP/Reuters Y! News and usnewswire.com, then check out my short list of blogs and newsfilters, much like DU.

From what I read, Google uses a computer algorithm system which rewards the many little yipping NAZI dogs as opposed to fewer bigger dogs, whose bark should be taken more seriously. There's no human editorial balancing act.

It's in line with how Google's search engine was set up, so I see it rather as a negative consequence of vulnerabilities in the google system, i.e. google attacks, rather than a vengeful bias against Kerry.

[burrowowl]

3. So far

I can still get foreign sources and read Spanish, German and French. Otherwise using only U$ mainstream stuff, would be in the dark.
For U$, Zmag has good stuff.

[shockingelk]

4. Yeah well we have ...

George Bush, a miserable failure. Something is to be said for that.

[shockingelk]

5. for that matter,

Bush is such a failure so as to be unelectable.

[JI7]

6. i have noticed it and anytime i see an anti Kerry headline

they tend to be from those sources mentioned.

[shockingelk]

7. the premise of the article is wrong

on the first page of news results for "john kerry" there are

5 Daily Kos articles
1 AlterNet article
1 People's Weekly World article, while not obviouly pro-Kerry, is obviously anti-Bush
And a washington dispatch article - never seen anything pro-bush there, but have seen a lot of DC rumors about the shenanigans of right-wingers.

[JI7]

8. that's not what turned up when i did it

a bunch of anti kerry crap came up when i did a news search for john kerry.

[shockingelk]

10. Well, there is

But there's also more than 1 blatantly partisan result for Kerry - although these days "partisan for Kerry" means "objective".

[mahina]

9. Thank you for shedding some light on this. The bias at Google news

was really getting to me- I quit even checking them for news this month.
I appreciate the chance to understand how the r's manipulate this and hope to be able to fight back!

[truthisfreedom]

11. new google alternative run by amazon.com... A9.com search engine.

i've used it a bit, and it seems pretty good. they intend to make it so powerful that it obviates google. it allows you a lot of options like storing your searches so you can come back to them later, without bookmarking everything in your browser. that can come in handy for doing extensive research.

[gottaB]

12. I second the linguistic artifact hypothesis

"george bush" turns up many kos pages and other critiques from the left.

Bush turns up more mainstream media news stories