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Friday, November 9, 2007

Is Google Dangerous?

“Google is hugely dangerous. It now affects everything we do online.

“Google is the number one topic of conversation at News Corp.

“We absolutely can’t afford not to be brilliant on Google News.”

The editor-in-chief of Times Online, Ann Spackman, made these comments at the Society of Editors conference on November 6 in Manchester. She showed her concern about Google during a session entitled the Future Is Ours. She attended the session as a panel to discuss the future of newspapers and made these comments when asked her view on Google. She also said: “Google is the biggest influence on the news business. Its move into DNA is a massive threat.” Her remarks attracted attention from many journalism news sites such as journalism.co.uk, Press Gazette, and greenslade. Why is Ms. Spackman so worried about Google?

Is Google a News Brand?

Google itself produces no news. The search engine just provides its users with news produced by someone else - newspapers, broadcasters, or news sites. It is a platform through which people get access to various news contents. You can click hyperlinks to news stories on Google News pages or search news by key words. But, Google has a function of journalism – news selection!

Thousands of news producers pour countless stories onto Google every day, but its news pages are limited in space. Only a tiny portion of those articles can get a link on it. Especially, if a huge story breaks out, hundreds of different versions of same story rush in. Who choose which story or whose story to appear on the main page of Google News? Google does! Google News pages are designed to have an inverted pyramid structure just as a newspaper does. The more important is a story, the better positioned. Who decides top stories on Google News? Even though far from a news brand, Google does the same thing as the editor-in-chief of the Times does in his newsroom – deciding news value.

I typed “Pakistan” in Google news search window at 12:29 pm on November 9 to catch up with stories about its opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. On the top of my search results was Bhutto under house detention in Pakistan of an American newspaper, San Jose Mercury News. Why does this story of that newspaper come first? It is because of Google search engine’s algorithm.

The Power of Google Algorithm

Ms. Spackman elaborated on why Google is a threat to news business at an interview with Press Gazette after the session was over. She said that newspapers have to optimize their sites for Google not to lose enormous traffic coming from the search engine. News sites depend financially on the advertisement revenue that is hugely influenced by the size of such traffic. If the traffic is highly susceptible to Google, it means that Google has the power to financially control news sites. When Google tweaked its search algorithm last month, WashingtonPost.com was one of several major sites whose PageRank temporarily dropped, she noted. Google also controls a large amount of advertising online, particularly since its acquisition this year of online advertising firm DoubleClick.

Power without Responsibility

Ms. Spackman was asked her view on Google during the conference session by an attendant who described it as "a trusted brand for news", according to journalism.co.uk. If the person reflected the reality as it was, Google's news selection must be regareded by people as a form of journalism. People are getting addicted to it as they have been to a certain brand of newspaper. This means Google can weild influence upon public opinion just as news media do. But it is free from the responsibilities every news medium takes for granted, because it does not produce any news.

Posted by WONJOON at 2:49 PM span.fullpost {display:inline;}

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