Google News Goes Toxic
Google News used to seem safe for scanning right after coming online, under the assumption that it contained a representative sampling of what was appearing in the news media of many kinds all over the country. But increasingly Google News is showing that, far from having a non-specific agenda, it is following a program that is definitely hazardous to the general mental health of anyone who might be in the habit of reading it, especially those who have not yet bought all the way into regressive ways of thinking.
Google News claims to refer to thousands of news sources, which it groups under 18 or 19 headings, some of them duplicates, under each of which are three sources that have somehow been given precedence, and these choices are supposed to be made purely by machine and not by the human hand. But the day has not yet arrived when computers can or are allowed to think entirely on their own, at least when it comes to political matters. So Google's choices of what to present as news must be controlled by giving extra weight to certain names, and right now one of the heaviest of those belongs to an obviously malevolent, unthinking force named S. Palin.
(Her malevolence and thoughtlessness is most egregiously shown by her statement that the Bush invasion and occupation of Iraq was an act of God. Surely, with all the death, destruction, and suffering that that act has brought to the people of that country, you would think that a god of any sort would regard this as the worst kind of insult to His, Her, or Its largeness of heart.)
No matter what else is happening in the world, Google News will always include at least three and sometimes more topics centered on Palin, even if it's just about her taste in eyeware, with an emphasis on the most breathless articles, typified by one that Google flagged briefly yesterday morning from -- where else? -- Fox News. Mercifully I have forgotten the title but it suggested that there can't be too much heard about S. Palin.
It looks for all the world as if the U.S., with a plethora of huge and really important problems looming over it like massive boulders teetering overhead all along the walls of a narrow canyon, is under assault by what could be called the "Britney Spears Syndrome."
I may be dismayed but I shouldn't be surprised, because all along it has seemed to me that, thanks to the enormous powers of the advertising industry and to the mindset of the dominant culture, to be a modern American is to have been raised between the legs of women of a certain heavily favored age, hue, and physical configuration. But this Palin thing is ridiculous, because we're talking here about efforts calculated to appeal to voters who nevertheless are already grown. Or are they?
Google News claims to refer to thousands of news sources, which it groups under 18 or 19 headings, some of them duplicates, under each of which are three sources that have somehow been given precedence, and these choices are supposed to be made purely by machine and not by the human hand. But the day has not yet arrived when computers can or are allowed to think entirely on their own, at least when it comes to political matters. So Google's choices of what to present as news must be controlled by giving extra weight to certain names, and right now one of the heaviest of those belongs to an obviously malevolent, unthinking force named S. Palin.
(Her malevolence and thoughtlessness is most egregiously shown by her statement that the Bush invasion and occupation of Iraq was an act of God. Surely, with all the death, destruction, and suffering that that act has brought to the people of that country, you would think that a god of any sort would regard this as the worst kind of insult to His, Her, or Its largeness of heart.)
No matter what else is happening in the world, Google News will always include at least three and sometimes more topics centered on Palin, even if it's just about her taste in eyeware, with an emphasis on the most breathless articles, typified by one that Google flagged briefly yesterday morning from -- where else? -- Fox News. Mercifully I have forgotten the title but it suggested that there can't be too much heard about S. Palin.
It looks for all the world as if the U.S., with a plethora of huge and really important problems looming over it like massive boulders teetering overhead all along the walls of a narrow canyon, is under assault by what could be called the "Britney Spears Syndrome."
I may be dismayed but I shouldn't be surprised, because all along it has seemed to me that, thanks to the enormous powers of the advertising industry and to the mindset of the dominant culture, to be a modern American is to have been raised between the legs of women of a certain heavily favored age, hue, and physical configuration. But this Palin thing is ridiculous, because we're talking here about efforts calculated to appeal to voters who nevertheless are already grown. Or are they?
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 8:15 AM
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