| 05 July 2010
To go outside the mainstream media box you may find yourself turning to other sources, Yahoo is one, and of course search engine giant Google News is another. Google News provides up to the minute headlines on the most important news of the day from a variety of different sources. They provide a smorgasbord of various media sources from blogs, to partisan websites that lean left or right in the political spectrum that cater specifically to your political ideals.
However there is a lot you may not know about the way in which the eyes at google news decide whether or not the news your read is legitimate. I however have first hand experience attempting to get my blog published within the Google News head lines.
To apply to be a part of Google News you don't need to be much of a blog or publication, all you need is a few writers and their contact information. You're not judged on the quality of your content or even the legitimacy of the content you provide. You can spew outright lies, misinformation, slander, and you too can be a part of the Google News network. The only thing they appear to care about is the appearance of you looking like a popular news website.
The difference between a search engine and news however is you count on your news information to be accurate and to be accountable for what is printed. This is the importance of the news media especially in the 24-hour news cycle where news information and stories change almost by the minute.
A lot of the time what happens in this 24-hour news cycle is that people are so often attempting to be the first ones on the air or on the web with important information that what gets lost is the facts. The facts are the most important aspect of any news story, not only for historical purposes, but also for decisions that may come as a result of the information being distributed.
A lot of conjecture and very little facts often get disseminated through these various "news" sources very which can be accurate. This type of false dissemination has existed previously in news history even before the advent of the 24-hour news media cycle with the internet.
In 1995 the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building the initial thought was Islamic terrorists were involved in this horrible tragedy. The mainstream media TV stations of the day speculated for nearly 96 hours that the responsibility of this horrible terrorist attack must somehow be linked to Middle East based zealots who wanted to cause the type of death and destruction so many of us witnesses on our TVs that day.
Only later did they find out later as the official investigation continued that it was a blonde haired blue eyed Timothy McVeigh who was responsible for the bombing. This type of conjecture in the news industry is decimating the credibility of journalists throughout the world. The one time statement that the pen is mightier than the sword is being replaced by opinion, speculation, assumption and speed to be the first ones to report are more important than accuracy and truth.
Rumor and innuendo have replaced facts and accuracy an a completely new level and Google News has helped to perpetuate these inaccuracies if not flat out lies.
An example of Google News allowing just about anyone into most clearly is Bleacher Report, a not so main stream sports media website that allows anyone to write or blog about their own ideas in the sports world. Bleacher Report is essentially a blogging platform like wordpress or bloguin.com that is specifically caters to the major market sports of today.
The problem is Bleacher Report has absolutely no accountability to what people are allowed to write and not by coincidence Google News can pick up on and headline anything anyone chooses to write no matter how utterly ridiculous the story is. Google News uses an algorithm that takes into account how much traffic a site receives, much like their search engine results. The more popular the site or the more likely that information is going to be picked up on by Google News.
Most recently a story with the head line "Chicago Bears Considering Pulling the Trigger on Vincent Jackson" appeared from the Bleacher Report network onto the Google News sports head lines covering the Chicago Bears. Even after numerous main stream Chicago Bears news websites have totally debunked these types of rumors with actual sourced information this story is on the head line of Google News. Not only is Google News completely oblivious to the inaccuracy of the report, but Bleacher Report as well doesn't seem to be bat an eye to the wildly inaccurate information from the report.
While the information from this type of false Chicago Bears football story causes nothing more than mass hysteria of excitement and hope among Chicago Bears fans, imagine if this is a different story. A story in the same vein of the War of the Worlds radio story from the 1930s or more recently the completely falsified "Bigfoot has been found" story from the summer of 2008. It took nearly three days for the Bigfoot story to be proven false, in the mean time the news media (led by Fox News completely believed the story surrounding the mythological humanoid ape creature as a real possibility possibly even real.
The results of allowing these types of stories to be allowed to be perceived as real news, some day could provide real damage, possible damage to national security or possibly even mass hysteria and panic that could have dire consequences.
When will Google News learn a lesson? The Montauk Monster myth, sightings in Texas of the Chupakabra, and the aforementioned Big Foot story, none of these stories have been filtered out enough prior to being printed. Only the Bigfoot story from the summer of 2008 was legitimately walked back as being a hoax.
Time and again false information speculation and conjecture is allowed to be permeated through the news discussion as in fact real news. The future of this type of false reporting may some day have disastrous unintended consequences, of the likes we have not yet seen.
Shouldn't it be the job of Google News to take action now BEFORE these unintended consequences happen? There should somehow be away to better filter what is legitimate news that comes from legitimate news organizations and not from the minds and opinions that not only seeking publicity, but could very well threaten our American way of life.
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