..But if you’ve been following the politicization of their “news” search service, it increasingly seems necessary.
It is truly a sad day when you Google for news on today’s Afghan elections and you find that the latest story (5 hours ago as I write) is from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation – which is a far-left organization in the middle of a strike/lockout.
While the uncharitable might say those are the only conditions under which the story could get attention from the CBC; it does not justify Google’s abject failure to find any results in the United States media.
I admit that’s just from Google’s “View today’s top stories” link, but 1- there’s a promise implicit there, and 2- the next full link is to a September BBC report about the Afghan election campaign. That’s September of 2004.
If this seems astounding, one can easily check up on Google’s search algorithm. Did no major US news organization even mention the Afghan elections?
Google is right about CNN – no mention at all on CNN.com.
MSNBC.com, however, has “Afghans Head to Polls amid Violence”, and Foxnews.com has “Afghans Vote Amid Violence”.
Apparently, Google didn’t think such obscure “news” Web-sites should be near the top of its “approximately” 3,920,000 results.
Approximately weighted compared to a 2004 BBC story.
The only other results seemingly date-related to today’s election are these:
Afghan Election Set to Be Fiasco – Worldpress.org
Presidential elections in Afghanistan are set for October 9, 2004.
http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/1947.cfm – 39k – Sep 18, 2005 – Cached – Similar pages
Human Rights Watch – Afghan Election Blog, September 2005
Reports on current concerns including war casualties among Afghan civilians, the use of cluster bombs, and the rights of prisoners of war.
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/afghanistan/ – 17k – Sep 17, 2005 – Cached – Similar pages
US Hand Seen in Afghan Election
US Hand Seen in Afghan Election Some candidates say the embassy pressured them not to run against President Karzai. by Paul Watson …
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0923-26.htm – 20k – Cached – Similar pages
Aljazeera.Net – Afghan election candidate shot dead
Bronwyn Curran, spokeswoman for the joint UN-Afghan election management team, said campaigning had ended early so voters will not be distracted. …
english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/06F3BE4C-BCBA-40CC-8563-1FD0A71F1D5E.htm – 96k – Sep 17, 2005 – Cached – Similar pages
They weight the results. You decide.