Google Clearly Promoting Barack Obama

With all the fervor over media bias, many of us have already turned to The Internet as an alternative source of information. Unfortunately, this same bias which has newspapers and network TV  devouring it’s own credibility from the inside out, has leaked onto The Internet.

The New Media Monster

Google News Sources

While I realize the top news stories on Google are dynamically fed and change every few minutes, the vast majority of 1024 x 768 prime real estate is occupied by headlines from the much beleaguered New York Times, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, CNN, and The BBC. There are many other sources cited such as Fox News, The Christian Science Monitor, The AP, and Reuters but the sources in the first group come up more often on my homepage. How is this bias? Let’s find out.

The New York Times and The Washington Post both openly support the candidacy of Barack Obama for President. In addition to making a public endorsement, both publications use the age old trick of running “hard news” with a left hand curve while presenting the conservative point of view in the editorial and op ed sections. This is their version of “fair and balanced”.

The Huffington Post… A liberal left smear site… So much anger it’s hard to believe anyone could quote them as a credible news source.

CNN – Many documented allegations of liberal bias and unfair practices. Same for The BBC. Even though I didn’t include The AP in this group, if you go to their website at the time of this post, there is a scrolling marquee of images depicting top stories. Notice the image of Vice Presidental candidate Sarah Palin appears right next to the image of Syrian villagers with coffins, supposedly containing the bodies of “martyrs” killed in a US attack earlier in the week. Not only are the images conveniently placed, but Sarah Palin appears to be blowing them a kiss.

Fair and Balanced?

In addition to the preponderance of liberal left leaning news sources taking up the front page, I took a close look at headlines from Fox News and The Christian Science Monitor. I picked those two because the mere mention of either name sends liberals screaming into the night crying fascism and bigotry. The headline for Fox News? Thousands Still Without Power in Upstate New York After Snow Storm How about The Christian Science Monitor? Obama rips Sarah Palin in new campaign ad

So the story Google runs from Fox is about a power outage (aka, who gives a crap…) and while The Christian Science Monitor decries the Obama ad in the article following the headline, you wouldn’t know that unless you read the whole thing. TCM would have done better to run the headline: Questionable Obama Ad Rips Governor Palin. Same story, but quite a different sounding headline. Of course if they ran that headline, you probably wouldn’t see it on Google.

Before you call me crazy, take a look at the Google ad(s) to the right. Who’s name or image do you see? Again, this is constantly changing, dynamically loaded content but 98% of the time, B.O.’s over there…