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Google Bias 01-14-18 See Michael's latest cartoons HERE
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Google's new fact-check feature: Proof liberal bias in tech and the media is real
Liz Wolfe | Jan 11, 2018, 5:53 PM Conservatives have long been paranoid that Silicon Valley executives might be using their powers to nefariously target them and their media. These fears were especially heightened in the wake of the Google memo controversy and subsequent lawsuit, filed only days ago. But per the Daily Caller, right-wingers are now up in arms about Google’s new fact-checking feature, and they have good reason to feel targeted. Recently, if you google the name of a publication, a sidebar will pop up with information on who the site reaches and what types of topics they cover. But for certain, though not all, publications, the sidebar will display a Snopes-like “reviewed claims” section, which instantly plants skepticism of credibility in the reader’s mind. This is not generally a bad thing, since readers should be skeptical of the articles they read. But, as observant journalists like the Washington Free Beacon’s Alex Griswold have pointed out, it’s the right-wing sites that are having the veracity of their articles scrutinized, not their left-wing counterparts. The Blaze, The Federalist, and (understandably) Breitbart all trigger the appearance of the “reviewed claims” section, while Salon, Bustle, Huffington Post, Jezebel, and Alternet do not. As many people have pointed out, bad and biased reporting is not limited to the Right, and it’s absurd that Google’s fact-checking feature implicitly plants in people’s minds that Jezebel is more credible than the Federalist. In a perfect world, readers would be critical of both sites and any claim that seems even halfway fishy. But perhaps the Right is being targeted because they’ve put out such obviously bad stuff for so long now. Flip to Fox News and watch Sean Hannity spout false, disproven talking points about crimes committed by illegal immigrants, or watch Dana Loesch’s National Rifle Association video that makes it sound like First Amendment-protected protest is tearing our country apart and cops need to suppress the angry, civil war-creating masses. The conservative websites flagged by Google’s fact-checker have put out both Milo Yiannopoulos op-eds and unsavory defenses of pedophile politician Roy Moore, so they’re not exactly churning out the most reliable, nuanced news of all time. The right-wing media has, at times, made mountains out of campus speech molehills, given far too much attention to provocateurs and birthers, and focused on fear mongering at the expense of good reporting. But, without giving the Right a free pass, we should also consider that liberal bias is insidious, just less obvious — it’s present in the most reputable newsrooms, and it skews our interpretation of the news on a regular basis. Remember, newsrooms are full of journalists who are ideologically clustered on the Left — or at least not the Right. In 2002, about 18 percent of U.S. journalists considered themselves Republican. As of 2013, that number had dropped to about 7 percent. That alone doesn’t indicate that journalists are super far to the Left, as many self-identify as independent. But other pieces of evidence add to the story: Donations from people working in the media during the last election totaled nearly $382,000 for Democrat Hillary Clinton, while donations to Republican Donald Trump came out to a paltry $14,000. Former NPR CEO Ken Stern has spoken out about his own experience with newsroom groupthink and how that created blind spots for reporters covering the 2016 election. And dozens of post-mortems came out after pundits failed to predict Clinton’s loss, as journalists attempted to discern how the media had fumbled their predictions so impressively. They underestimated the political passions and tensions of vast swaths of the country, partially due to their own biases and condescension. read more 
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