Comments on: Does GoogleNews Have Conservative Bias? http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/news_portals_/ Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:12:14 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Remy Logan http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/news_portals_/comment-page-1/#comment-24198 Remy Logan Fri, 24 Sep 2004 23:14:08 +0000 /?p=7542#comment-24198 I've always felt that the Google News front page has a slight liberal bias, which I figured was unintentional and just a result of the MSM's own biases. I don't think Google is trying to slant results either way, and shouldn't try to "level the playing field." Like carpeicthus said, it comes down to message discipline. Conservative and centrist bloggers play it more straight than those on the left, that's not Google's fault, and shouldn't be their concern. Interestingly, if you search on "Bush is a chimp" you will get a bunch of lefty blogs, which is to be expected. Search on "Kerry is stupid" and you again get a bunch of lefty blogs, though that exact phrase doesn't show up. I think this little experiment shows that the guys&gals on the right are playing it more straight and deserve to be first in the results. I've always felt that the Google News front page has a slight liberal bias, which I figured was unintentional and just a result of the MSM's own biases.

I don't think Google is trying to slant results either way, and shouldn't try to "level the playing field." Like carpeicthus said, it comes down to message discipline. Conservative and centrist bloggers play it more straight than those on the left, that's not Google's fault, and shouldn't be their concern.

Interestingly, if you search on "Bush is a chimp" you will get a bunch of lefty blogs, which is to be expected. Search on "Kerry is stupid" and you again get a bunch of lefty blogs, though that exact phrase doesn't show up. I think this little experiment shows that the guys&gals on the right are playing it more straight and deserve to be first in the results.

]]> By: carpeicthus http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/news_portals_/comment-page-1/#comment-24174 carpeicthus Fri, 24 Sep 2004 13:41:34 +0000 /?p=7542#comment-24174 There's just a lot more message discipline on the right to far-right than on the far left. You have all these disparate sites talking about the exact same thing, so something that focuses on aggregating related stories by topic will be skewed in that direction. It's a problem of structure. Memeorandum has the same problem to a lesser extent -- I've had some really impressive correspondance from the owner about it, but there's no really easy way to go about it without subordinating that water cooler ideal to some sort of ideological quota. It would be nice to find ways to reduce the distortion, though. There's just a lot more message discipline on the right to far-right than on the far left. You have all these disparate sites talking about the exact same thing, so something that focuses on aggregating related stories by topic will be skewed in that direction. It's a problem of structure. Memeorandum has the same problem to a lesser extent -- I've had some really impressive correspondance from the owner about it, but there's no really easy way to go about it without subordinating that water cooler ideal to some sort of ideological quota. It would be nice to find ways to reduce the distortion, though.

]]>