President Trump tweeted this morning that Big Tech platforms, specifically Google, are suppressing conservative voices and news, while Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow later added that the administration is "taking a look" at whether Google searches should be regulated....You remember Sharyl Attkisson, the right-wing journalist who famously, during the Obama years, released a video of her computer allegedly being hacked in real time by government agents, purportedly in response to her Benghazi reporting. (The video actually revealed that Attkisson's laptop had a stuck delete key.) Attkisson has also published reports alleging a link between vaccines and autism.
This morning's Google-aimed tirade appears to stem from a PJ Media article titled, "96 Percent of Google Search Results for 'Trump' News Are from Liberal Media Outlets," which was covered last night by Fox Business' Lou Dobbs.
"In a test that she admitted was "not scientific," PJ Media editor Paula Bolyward Googled the word "Trump" and classified each result based on a media chart compiled by right-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group anchor Sharyl Atkisson.
She found that out of the top 100 search results, only five were by media outlets considered conservative — Fox News and the Wall Street Journal. CNN, WaPo, and
NBC appeared most frequently in the top 100, prompting Bolyard to conclude there is a "blatant prioritization of left-leaning and anti-Trump media outlets."
"PJ Media did not appear in the first 100 results, nor did National Review, The Weekly Standard, Breitbart, The Blaze, The Daily Wire, Hot Air, Townhall, [or] Red State."
Her media chart is ridiculous (click to enlarge):
CNBC and Fortune are left-leaning? Also Politico, The Hill, PolitiFact, Variety, and U.S. News? Sorry, this can't be taken seriously.
But beyond that, let's look at the list of top sources Bolyard found when she Googled Trump:
Do you know why CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times are on the list? Because they have broad audiences -- and because they specialize in news. There's a lot of opinion at the Times, the Post, and CNN, but they're news organizations. They do reporting.
PJ Media? National Review? Townhall? RedState? They specialize in opinion. Many people want opinion -- from both the mainstream ("left-leaning") and right-wing sites -- but many more people just want the news. That's why most of the top choices made the list. (NBC is up there because its site includes some serious reporting. Politico does serious reporting of inside-the-Beltway news. CNBC does the same with business news.)
The mainstream media is "liberal" in large part because the right-wing press doesn't bother to do real reporting. Even stories embarrassing to Democrats -- for instance, the revelation of former New York State attorney general Eric Schneiderman's alleged sexual assaults -- is broken by "liberal" media outlets. Hell, it was the "liberal" media that broke the original #MeToo story, about Harvey Weinstein. The guy was a top Democratic donor! Why didn't a right-wing news outlet get the story?
Because reporting is a secondary concern at right-wing news outlets. You can get news from Fox News, but Fox specializes in pro-GOP, pro-Trump opinion and anti-liberal, anti-Democratic scandalmongering.
The only exception to this rule is The Wall Street Journal -- but nearly every Journal article is behind a paywall, so why should Google send readers to Journal stories?
Please note that MSNBC isn't on the list, either. Lots of people are watching MSNBC these days -- but the site isn't where a wide range of people go to get straight news. (That shows up at NBC.com.)
Want to dominate news search results, righties? Do real reporting on real news.
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