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Elevating original reporting in Search

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Re: Elevating original reporting in Search

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't making a specific argument about Gutfeld though. The broader context is that it's favoring partisan sources and messages. That's an outcome. By explaining why that outcome is reasonable and giving a list of valid claims to support it, it does not address the stated problem which is the fact that this search engine presents a slanted view of American politics. Why is it ok to have this kind of search result?…

> I wasn't making a specific argument about Gutfeld though. Yeah, you were. Your overall point wasn't about him specifically, but you most certainly did attempt to use him as a (completely invalid) supporting argument. You're generally doing a very bad job of supporting your position. That's understandable to an extent because showing convincing evidence of systematic bias requires gathering a non-trivial amount of d…

I think the misunderstanding here is that we are focusing on an offhand remark made mostly in jest.

You can read as much meaning and intent into it and in that sense it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for me to do a good job to counteract the manifestation of unintended meaning or intent into what I say, so going forward I will limit any facetious remarks.

Regardless, the data here was that I typed a search query and the outcome was from sources that lean left of center. I think people are best served when there is a diversity of views since we can potentially benefit from the lived experience of everyone, all of whom have something valuable to contribute to our discourse. In a political sense voters are not served well when the news organizations that are shown to them on a search result page are either pro or anti ruling party.

In my country most television news is pro-government, with the exception of one channel. This government frequently misrepresents data and it's helpful to us as citizens when our media organizations can hold them accountable. If Google were to favor some media corporations over others, it can potentially prevent the media from doing this.

Fundamentally I think a better news product is one that provides diverse points of view to the reader to help inform them of the diverse perspectives on a particular topic. By boosting some corporations over others, in a world where bias is fairly well established, I think the product does readers a disservice.

Re: Elevating original reporting in Search

#132
post #57

Okay let's give this a try news.google.com -> Democratic debate Websites: BBC, Vox, Guardian, NYT, WaPo, CNN, Slate (wow), The New Yorker, USA Today Absent: National Review, Fox News, Wall Street Journal, reason, Forbes, RT So basically the news algorithm considers these kinds of stories high quality: 1) Stephen Colbert plays Democrat Drinking Game (NYT) No Greg Gutfeld sketch ? 2) Funniest one-liners at the Democrat…

For me (Firefox + noscript + ublock in private browsing mode):

- cnn

- cnn

- cbsnews

- NY Times

- NPR

- AP News

- Wikipedia

All neutral sources except for the NY Times and CNN on a bad day.

Of your list there: Nation Review, Reason, and Forbes are not journalism outlets. RT doesn't have editorial independence like other state backed media. Without getting into debate, maybe Fox News should be on my page before wikipedia and a second CNN link. But I don't see a reason for those others.

Re: Elevating original reporting in Search

#133
post #125

Authoritative seeming sources are not always a good thing. Anytime you search for a game guide/faq/hint you get drivel from the big name sites that are super short on content and have bad advice. Almost in all cases the content I’m looking for is in some tiny blog that barely ranks but matches all the search words.

> Authoritative seeming sources are not always a good thing.

Yeah, but what if stupid people search for the wrong thing, find the wrong website and get infected with Wrongthink? Have you thought about that? Crushing amateur content creators and betraying all the ideals of the early Web is small price to pay for preventing that intolerable scenario.

Re: Elevating original reporting in Search

#134
post #57

Okay let's give this a try news.google.com -> Democratic debate Websites: BBC, Vox, Guardian, NYT, WaPo, CNN, Slate (wow), The New Yorker, USA Today Absent: National Review, Fox News, Wall Street Journal, reason, Forbes, RT So basically the news algorithm considers these kinds of stories high quality: 1) Stephen Colbert plays Democrat Drinking Game (NYT) No Greg Gutfeld sketch ? 2) Funniest one-liners at the Democrat…

For me (Firefox + noscript + ublock in private browsing mode): - cnn - cnn - cbsnews - NY Times - NPR - AP News - Wikipedia All neutral sources except for the NY Times and CNN on a bad day. Of your list there: Nation Review, Reason, and Forbes are not journalism outlets. RT doesn't have editorial independence like other state backed media. Without getting into debate, maybe Fox News should be on my page before wikipe…

FYI, you seem to be listing results from a regular Google web search, not a Google News search.

Re: Elevating original reporting in Search

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me (Firefox + noscript + ublock in private browsing mode): - cnn - cnn - cbsnews - NY Times - NPR - AP News - Wikipedia All neutral sources except for the NY Times and CNN on a bad day. Of your list there: Nation Review, Reason, and Forbes are not journalism outlets. RT doesn't have editorial independence like other state backed media. Without getting into debate, maybe Fox News should be on my page before wikipe…

FYI, you seem to be listing results from a regular Google web search, not a Google News search.

ah my bad

Re: Elevating original reporting in Search

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wasn't making a specific argument about Gutfeld though. Yeah, you were. Your overall point wasn't about him specifically, but you most certainly did attempt to use him as a (completely invalid) supporting argument. You're generally doing a very bad job of supporting your position. That's understandable to an extent because showing convincing evidence of systematic bias requires gathering a non-trivial amount of d…

I think the misunderstanding here is that we are focusing on an offhand remark made mostly in jest. You can read as much meaning and intent into it and in that sense it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for me to do a good job to counteract the manifestation of unintended meaning or intent into what I say, so going forward I will limit any facetious remarks. Regardless, the data here was that I typed a sear…

[deleted]

Re: Elevating original reporting in Search

#137
post #57

Okay let's give this a try news.google.com -> Democratic debate Websites: BBC, Vox, Guardian, NYT, WaPo, CNN, Slate (wow), The New Yorker, USA Today Absent: National Review, Fox News, Wall Street Journal, reason, Forbes, RT So basically the news algorithm considers these kinds of stories high quality: 1) Stephen Colbert plays Democrat Drinking Game (NYT) No Greg Gutfeld sketch ? 2) Funniest one-liners at the Democrat…

The first 10 for me were:

NYT, NYT, NYT, NYT, Vox, NYT, WaPo, NPR, CBS, LA Times

They certainly seem to like New York Times

Re: Elevating original reporting in Search

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking of gossip. Anyone quoting sources and showing their work (published data) is reporting. Even if you disagree with the interpretation, conclusions. Especially if you disagree. -- Sadly, I continue to be embarrassed, surprised when geeks proclaim it's all just opinion. This anti-intellectualism is how cults and hoaxes fester and grow. It's not helping. Is it too much to ask that the primary beneficiarie…

I think the point of the parent is that any story you read is editorialized to some degree, even if all it's doing is listing facts. Every time you read a report on a topic, mountains of facts are omitted for the sake of disseminating the points the authors and editors thought you should know to build your opinion. It is thus vital that you trust their judgment to do so in a way that's beneficial to you. Knowing thin…

I empathically agree with your paras #2 and #3.

"any story you read is editorialized to some degree"

The opinion is the value add.

I used to read The Economist, because they challenged my views. I read Tyler Cowen today because I disagree with him and because he argues his case.

The rut we find popular discourse in today is caused by two things. The New Deal consensus we once had has not been replaced with a new consensus. The reluctance to distinguish between blather and discourse (debate).

Re: Elevating original reporting in Search

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI, you seem to be listing results from a regular Google web search, not a Google News search.

ah my bad

For what it's worth, with my account logged in to Google geolocated in India, my results are almost the same except BBC and Guardian instead of CBS and NPR. This is for Google Search, not Google News, as the other commenter pointed out.

Re: Elevating original reporting in Search

#140
post #20
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the original PageRank, and every iteration since, defined by what Google engineers believe to be a relevant and informative webpage? They have a 160+ page guide that tells their ratings team how to identify high-quality content: https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterh...

>Isn't the original PageRank (...) defined by what Google engineers believe to be a relevant and informative webpage? No, quite the opposite. The original PageRank was defined by what other internet publishers considered to be a relevant and informative webpage. Specifically, the original PageRank was weighting content by the links (and content around the links) it was getting. The trust was placed on the internet pu…

> The original PageRank was defined by what other internet publishers considered to be a relevant and informative webpage. Specifically, the original PageRank was weighting content by the links (and content around the links) it was getting. The trust was placed on the internet publishers linking to it.

Which fell apart badly when:

1. Personal web sites (and, later, even personal blogs) fell out of favor, reducing the quantity of both independent web sites to surface in search, and the number of available signals of page value

2. The migration of users to social media silos reduced the visibility of genuine personal recommendations, especially as those sites often applied "nofollow" to links in user-generated content

3. Search engine optimization became a thing, leading to a glut of low-quality pages (even from previously reputable publishers!) and massive abuse of the remaining signals of page quality

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