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It’s increasingly Google’s world — we’re just living in it. According to Cyberjournalist (linking to an article in the New Scientist), Google is fine-tuning its “News” search function in a big way.
It seems the increasingly omnipresent search company is currently building a database that will compare the credibility of all searchable news sources “by continually monitoring the number of stories from all news sources, along with average story length, number with bylines, and number of the bureau[s] cited, along with how long they have been in business.” The database is also being set up to track how large a news source’s staff is, the volume of Internet traffic it receives and the number of countries accessing the site. We’re not sure story length, number of bylines on a story, or size of news staff are reliable yardsticks to measure the credibility of whatever is in front of your eyeballs at the moment — but, hey, at least it’s something.
Speaking of Internet news accessibility, Dan Gillmor picks up on a story from the Newspaper Association of America that looks at how newspaper publishers are tracking what stories get the most play on their Web sites — and how this is beginning to drive which stories receive additional coverage in the next day’s print edition. Gillmor doesn’t take much of a stand on the issue (there’s a debate over how much this may force papers into more gossip and tabloid fare), but he does seem to see the potential for a form of natural selection: “Attract people who believe what they read in supermarket tabloids and on Fox News, and they’ll make decisions in a certain manner. Attract other kinds of folks, and they’ll make other kinds of decisions.”
Danny Schechter weighs in today with a look at Laura Bush’s speech at the White House Correspondents dinner on Saturday, which he turns into a critique of the national press corps:
Laura Bush poked fun at George and everyone laughed, and the edge was once again taken off any acrimony that might exist between the president and his servile press corps(e). Rituals like this erode whatever adversarial relationship still exists between the press and the government. It’s a form of cultural embedding, softening the partisan edges.
Way to go, Danny! That should explode the pesky myth that the Left is humorless.
The Democracy Cell Project doesn’t have a problem with the event and the First Lady’s speech so much as with the way it was covered. Noting the recent surge in bombings and civilian deaths in Iraq, they ask, “And what’s on CNN? Michael Jackson, Laura Bush delivering jokes at the White House Press Corpse Dinner, the runaway bride relatives, and cracking down on violence in the movies — I am not kidding you.”
If only you were, CJR Daily might sleep a little better at night. But we might also be out of a job.
Speaking of the “runaway bride,” she has officially won the coveted the “douchebag of the day” prize from the blog of the same name. As part of the statement announcing her new title, Raybone writes, “if Wilbanks thinks life was stressful before, she’s in for a helluva surprise … those volunteers who crawled through sewage aren’t going to forgive the stressed-out bride anytime soon.”
And so we have another news cycle, complete with the requisite missing brides, celebrity trials, cowed media and more Internet triumphalism. This is beginning to sound all too familiar …
–Paul McLeary
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