On Google News, click on the link John Kerry (under In The News) and, mainstream newspapers and magazines aside, here are the results you get on the first page:
• Useless-Knowledge.com (right-wing site): John Kerry Said “Bring It On”, Now Whines To Bush To Stop The Ads
• Enter Stage Right (right-wing ejournal): The imploding John Kerry
• Useless-Knowledge.com (right-wing site): What If John Kerry Was President On 9-11?
• BushCountry (right-wing site): Americans May Be Stupid, But Not THAT Stupid
• The Omega Letter Intelligence – Bible Prophecy and Christian Intelligence (right-wing newsletter): The Cambodian Candidate
• RushLimbaugh.com (take a guess): Listen to Rush
• Intellectual Conservative (guess again): Why James Rassmann Is Honestly Mistaken About John Kerry Saving His Life
• RushLimbaugh.com (and again): Who’s the Cowboy Now?
• Frontpagemag.com (right-wing mag): John Kerry’s Puzzling Silver Star Citations
• Useless-Knowledge.com (again): Mr. Rood Is Mistaken About John Kerry’s Viet Nam Story
• Omega Letter Intelligence Digest (right-wing newsletter): Vietnam Controversy Costing Kerry, Says Historian
• And right-of-center Christopher Hitchens adds to the fun in Slate: Not So Swift. John Kerry’s dubious Vietnam revisionism.
It’s not until you get to the 36th link on the page that there’s a link to a Kerry item from a pro-Kerry site or blog (CommonDreams).
Ah, but then Google News continues …
• American Daily (conservative site): John Kerry’s Personal War Diary
• Useless-Knowledge (again): John Kerry’s Resume (Part V) At Worst, Treasonous Behavior
• Men’s News Daily (conservative site): The Questions The Mainstream Media Needs To Ask John Kerry About
• Michnews.com (conservative site): Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Expose John Kerry’s Lies
• WorldNetDaily (conservative site): Krazy John Kerry
• Useless-Knowledge (again): John Kerry’s Voting Record
• Men’s News Daily (conservative site): John Kerry is Definitely “Unfit for Command”
• LewRockwell.com (conservative site): If I Were Kerry’s TV Ad Man
• Men’s News Daily (again): Kerry’s Curiously Edited Website
• Cato Institute (conservative think tank): Which John Kerry Will Shape US Trade Policy?
• Michnews.com (again): I’m John Kerry And I Approve This Flip-Flop
• American Daily (again): Did The Media Give Us John Kerry?
• American Daily (again): Would The Real John Kerry Stand Up? American Daily
• American Daily (again): Kerry And Abortion!
• American Daily (again): “Bringing It On”
• Useless-Knowledge (again): John Kerry; What Would He Do?
• Useless-Knowledge (again): John Kerry Just Can’t Stand The Heat
• Useless-Knowledge (again): John Hey John Kerry, Bring It On!
• Useless-Knowledge (again): John Kerry The War Hero [Haven’t We Seen This Movie Before?]
• Broken Newz (conservative site): John Kerry’s Letters to Ted Kennedy
• Useless-Knowledge (again): John Kerry’s Resume (Part IV) Hate Mail Abounds
• Men’s News Daily (again): John Kerry and “Unfit for Command”
And I didn’t even include the New York Post and Washington Times.
This is Google News, folks, not the Drudge Report, not Lucianne.com. On a page with more than 100 links, only one linked to a Democratic or left-of-center site. No American Prospect, no TomPaine.com, no Alternet. This, despite the fact that the major left-of-center sites are heavily trafficked (and spew less venom that its rightist counterparts). By contrast, the first page of results linking to George Bush contains almost no vitriol at all.
Google: Fix your algorithms!!
I don’t mean to suggest that Google ought to return an equally balanced first page of results, but a smidgen of balance would be nice. Call it a venom correction check.
No wonder Kerry is appearing on The Daily Show tonight — it’s one of the few smear-free zones left in the mediasphere.
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
Google News' one-sided Kerry coverage
Do news sites like Google News have any responsibility to provide balanced coverage of the presidential candiates? You wouldn't know it by clicking on the John Kerry link under the In The News heading. There, on the first page, dozens…
Google News' one-sided Kerry coverage
Do news sites like Google News have any responsibility to provide balanced coverage of the presidential candiates? You wouldn't know it by clicking on the John Kerry link under the In The News heading. There, on the first page, dozens…
Google News' one-sided Kerry coverage
Do news sites like Google News have any responsibility to provide balanced coverage of the presidential candiates? Do they have a responsibility to inform the public debate? You wouldn't know it by clicking on the John Kerry link under the…
One of the reasons why the Google doesn’t return a more accurate picture of the news is that many news sites (NY Times, Washington Post) restrict access to their sites with passwords, and the Google-bots do ever get to see the content.
That doesn’t directly answer your comment, but it’s a factor.
I noticed the same thing. It’s as if fringe sites from the right are in abundant supply, but not some fairly mainstream, left-of-center sites.
Strange, and disappointing.
I don’t know to what extent you can blame Google for this directly as I have noticed the same thing affecting various other news aggregation sites; namely blogdex, daypop and technorati.
I suspect that what is happening is that someone at the Heritage Foundation or one of the other Right Wing Think Tanks is paid to sit in front of a terminal and figure out how to game those algorithms and get high page rank and link connections.
This is the only explanation i can see for Techcentralstation getting as much referral as they do.
I had a look at the only randomised survey statistics I know that include blogging – Pew’s data from Mar-Apr 2003 – but it wasn’t that helpful. Out of 5000 people interviewed, only 1.5% produced their own weblogs and of these only 25 people (.5%) would reveal their party affiliation (2 rep, 10 dem, 11 independent). For what it’s worth this is a lower proportion than that of the whole public. Could it be that bloggers are actually less political than the overall population? Maybe, if you consider that 71.4% of them are under 50.
You suggested the right is more venomus than the left. I beg to differ. My articles you quoted have been fact not fiction that is not venom.
Ken Hughes
Let them prove that their not biased about Kerry by providing some coverage about the re-release of this song:
For Immediate Release
Fearing that John Kerry will run for president again in ’08, conservative singer/songwriter has re-released a Halloween song he wrote about Kerry just prior to the election of ’04. Dr. BLT, the singer/songwriter who penned and performs the tune said he is afraid, not of Kerry wining in ’08, but rather, he is afraid of having to be subjected to John Kerry and his media blitz.
The song is royalty free to conservative radio talk show hosts and can be heard and downloaded for free via this link:
Scary Kerry
words and music by Bruce L. Thiessen, aka Dr. BLT (c) 2004
http://www.drblt.net/music/scarykerry.mp3
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