Slashdot Mirror
MS admits Newsbot Biased Towards MSNBC
JasdonLe writes "According to this article at the Washington Post, Microsoft's recently unleashed news aggregator site, Newsbot will choose to display MSNBC articles over other articles on the same topic.
"As Newsbot resides on MSNBC and is branded as such, MSNBC is considered a first among equals, meaning that if they and another top-tier source offer the same story, information, etc., MSNBC will be listed first, followed by other sources," says Elizabeth Herrera Smith, Microsoft spokeswoman."
"not getting it". I know they have pie in the sky hopes to take on Google and bless their hearts they're gonna spend a lot of money but it's going to be largely futile. I like Google precisely because I don't get a bias. I also don't get bombarded by ad after ad after ad (or popup after popup after popup ala Hotmail).
... well... good luck
In many regards comparing Google search to MSN search and Google news to MSs newsbot is apples and oranges. In order for MS to unseat Google they have to be (MS execs read this carefully) BETTER. Until then
It's this kind of strategy that will keep them from ever beating google
5468652047616D65
Think MSNBC (and Newsbot) will carry THIS story? :)
So the idea is that if you go to http://newsbot.msnbc.msn.com/, you get some MSNBC stories, possibly followed by related stories from other news organizations.
Perhaps I'm thick, but this kind of seems obvious to me. How else would anyone expect them to do it?
...first among equals.
Wow... admitting this, they just anhililated any chances they had of beating google news (my major news source, since I don't listen to radio or TV), at least for me...
:)
I mean, i'm interested in the most interesting articles, not the MSNBC one...
Oh well.
Google is better anyway
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
Does anyone besides the /. reader base really care though? I mean first of all, most of them will never hear of this bias. Secondly, of those that do, will they really care? If they're using MyMSN or MSN.com as their homepage they'll most likely get this search engine as their default and never know the difference. Once webmasters realize this, they'll start finding ways to get their sites to be listed "2nd" on MS's engine listings.
;)
There are a lot of Google users out there, but MS's name is even more widely known and I hear their advertising budget isn't too shabby.
My Tech Posts on Twitter
I checked the MSN newsbot and was suprised to find there (German) articles, that news.google.com didn't find. In the other way, MSN didn't know most sources of Google news.
What is the deal for content publishers to give MSN and Google access to their databases? If it is readers attention, this way is the wrong way.
Could MSN adopt paid content for their newsbot? This would be another business modell.
so what? who really cares? use Google News instead.
Outside Redmond.
They have such a tight knit community going on within MS that they think their way is the only one that works. While this is great for those people inside MS, and we have all read about how great they are to work for, it doesn't convince the rest of the world, and Court decisions prove this.
Why do they insist on being blinded by the branding? They could easily challenge Google if they did what Google does, but with a bigger brand, instead they choose to take away the very thing that Google is popular in with their own offering.
Google is NOT unbiased, Page Rankings count as a bias to me, but they are the very closest thing to it that we have.
Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
In other news, MSNBC reports confirm the sky is blue, cancer is bad, and there's a hidden, lethal chemical in your house, just waiting to kill your children, story at 11.
What's the problem? Don't like it? Then start your own friggin' news aggregator site!
Oh, wait...
never mind...
I like News Google. I tend to call it Noogle for short. It's something I use everyday.
I guess on slow news days the editors here pull out any kind of MS story they can find to try and stir up the zealots. C'mon guys, would you go into a Ford dealership and expect the salesman to try to sell you a Chevrolet?
Microsoft selling microsoft, who didnt dee this comeing, they own a news service, and now they have a news search engine, of cource Bill would tie them together.
...not fair or balanced. And we all thought our newsbots would be giving us objective reading of the news.
Oh no! Next they'll tell us that Slashdot editors like to link to Everything2 and Newsforge!
At least they have divulged thier corperate tie-ins, as opposed to 60 minutes (CBS, a VIACOM company) who did an expose on Richard Clarkes book, which is published by SIMON & SCHUSTER, also a VIACOM company, basically making the whole Bob Woodward interview an infomercial, and this isnt the first time they did that ("The Price of Loyalty" by former Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill)
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
..duh?? Consider Newsbot a search engine for MSNBC articles and related ones, "problem" solved =D
First of all, MSNBC gets its news mostly from the wire services like most other news websites, so cool it with the unwarranted bias talk. This makes sense. The MS developers can talk directly with MSNBC folks and try to get more advanced crawling and indexing methods in place. This is why MS is involved in MSNBC in the first place - integration. Don't you think Yahoo gets the inside scoop on how Yahoo News articles are formatted directly from the developer? Or any other portal for that matter? Shock and amazement - employees talk to each other!
What they lack, and can never have, is what Google's simple advantage is: independence of thought and action.
Diversified economies work, monolithic serves-all-purposes entities such as communist governments or monopolies don't.
.. I start to view MS as the spoilt brat who thinks it should have every other kids pocket money. "You can view all the news you want, so long as its ours"
Art Makers Just an excuse to show photos of naked women !!
Google favors it's own wallet too. When you do a google search, the sponsored links are on the top of the search results.
Whatever. Next story.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The story is a dupe, the topic is boring, the facts weren't checked. WE GET IT!!
check out the links, every single one of them goes via moreover.com, if this was a MSN venture then why use moreover at all ?
m /c lick/here.pl
eg:
http://g.msn.com/0PNENUS/1?http://c.moreover.co
remember with MSN sites YOU are the product, the content is merely filler, all of their sites are just advertising and user tracking applications, not convinced ? then view source of their pages and see for yourself
nice tracking code such as
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/js/nmjs06.js
adding onmouseover/onmouseout handlers to the links so you dont spot the link tracking, if its no big deal why hide the tracking ?
if any network needs to be blocked as a security/privacy risk its MSN
I'm shocked, yes, shocked at the blatent attempts within Microsoft by the underground Linux community at destroying Microsoft's reputation for being fair and balanced in any of it's news reporting or press releases.
In other news:
Pope is Catholic
Bear Shits in Woods
Riiiight. Ever watch MS-CNBC and notice how often they seem to be focusing on MSFT. I was watching their NASDAQ reporting one day where the female announcer was breathlessly blathering on about a 6 cent raise in MSFT. That same day RHAT was up about 2 bucks. It was never mentioned at all.
Monopolys are dangerous and self replicating especially when they begin to control the news media.
News Search Results
Find Your News: Newsbot Biased
No results
Yep, I think that says it all really.
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
I don't know if you ever watch the BBC, but they claim to be impartial and advertising free - yet there's loads of advertising on their channels, for their own goods and services. Right now we're bombarded with lavishly produced ads trying to get us all to sign up to BBC3 and 4, channels that are only available to digital subscribers (tho' you pay for them whether or not you even view them). EVERYONE is biased towards their own corporate siblings. At least CNN always tacks on a disclaimer that they're related when they report on an(other) AOL/TW company.
I'd say that this is hardly suprising. First time I looked at newsbot, I just assumed I'd see lots of MSNBC stories. Also, I'd imagine that many slashdotters will see this as more evil doings from Microsoft, but really there is nothing wrong with it. They have a news source, they list theirs first, it IS their site after all. Nobody faults google for placing "sponsored" ads at the top of the page, this is no different really. There WOULD be a problem if MS _removed_ news stories from the listing because it conflicted with MSNBC/MS/Windows/etc. Bottom line is: If you don't want to see MSNBC stories...MS Newsbot probably isn't the best place to look. Plus, there's always google or your own favorite news site.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
I won't be using their service, and even my techo-phobic grandparents know what Google is.
Anybody know how references back to their own articles here comes into any sort of antritrust matter?
Could it be argued that this practice will not give true indications and demonstrate just how easily it would be to use this service to mislead people, or am I thinking about this all the wrong way? Any law-savvy types in the house?
If you use their newsbot long enough, I think most people would figure out that.. "Hey, I always get MSNBC hits first, EVERY SINGLE TIME." Maybe some people will like MSNBC but the service will end up being considered an MSNBC search bot instead of a general news search.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Microsoft, the world leader in innovation, has developed a new innovative URL for Google's news service, "news.google.com".
Microsoft has realized that most of their customers are unfamiliar with typing URLs. Therefore, Microsoft has invented "newsbot".
This patent-pending innovation will permit internet users (for example, MSN customers) to click on a web link to read news from various news sources. The newsbot link seemlessly directs users to a near-perfect replica of news.google.com, the premier news aggregation site on the internet.
Microsoft can also leverage this technology to manipulate news stories, promoting and demoting news stories based on a customer's interests, tax records, and party affiliation.
Microsoft co-owns MSNBC with NBC-Universal. Presently, MSNBC's cable ratings are in the cellar, behind CNN and Fox"news." It really sux being in last place.
Microsoft, which is profit-minded, wishes to drive people to their product. In fact, they have taken specific steps to do that in other areas. Has anyone noticed that there is a free, installable copy of Microsoft Money given away with each copy of their operating system? (One wonders if it is ever actually installed...)
The issue here is, while there are better news sites out there, Microsoft wishes you to try theirs. If MSNBC winds up as bad as Microsoft Money as compared to Intuit's Quicken, people will start ignoring the existence of the link, unless the provenance of the link is hidden.
Frankly, I think both Microsoft and NBC Universal have a lot of work to do on MSNBC in making the content more compelling and more accurate. last I heard, MSNBC didn't work with Apple's browser and didn't work well with most of the alternatives to Internet Exploiter. Their content has gaps, many large. The NBC Network creates news stories that are run later (and in news time lots later on MSNBC -- in essence, the news is "repurposed" on MSNBC with the only actual news reported stuff that is freely available from the NBC affiliate stations (car chases and floods -- also re-purposed). Inviting Yet Another Talking Head to speak to your miniscule audience is not news.
I don't think Microsoft's spider will change the fact that there is nothing compelling on MSNBC. They're facing the same problem there that they have with their personal finance program.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
if the other news sources will take note of the fact that competitors will never be welcome in the MS world. All they really have to do is block the collector. If most or even all of them block, it becomes worthless.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
They are calling it an Internet news search, but it's going to be mostly searching their own site.
I'm not buying anything.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
The sponsored links are on the right side of the page on Google.
The unsponsored links are at the same level, on the left side of the page.
And if you read English, you read from left to right. So you'll see the unsponsored link first.
Microsoft: "Not getting it"
Microsoft managers have little ability to learn and appreciate how others see them. Preferring MSNBC over other news sources is seen by them as "branding". It's seen by others as conflict of interest.
Microsoft managers don't realize that we don't want to live in the little box that they construct for us.
As Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer become more and more bored with their business, and more and more tired with doing every day what they have done since they were teenagers, Microsoft is slipping more and more out of control. There are Microsoft people who aren't actually doing anything for anyone, but who have jobs there and want to keep them.
There are fewer and fewer top managers at Microsoft who both recognize that there needs to be vigorous re-organization, and have the power to accomplish it. In years past the company was as arrogant as it is today, but more alive.
A company's news bot will give priority to that company's news articles...How incredibly surprising.
I didn't realize Slashdot was in the business of pointing out the extremely obvious. How about some links that state that the sun is hot, or that Abraham Lincoln is dead?
...Slashdot discovers businesses prefer to sell their own products, not their competitors.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
All newsbots are created equal... but some are more equal than others.
These goals make it impossible for M$ to ever be objective or as good or better than Google. When Slate publishes an article recommending another browser over IE, Slate is sold off. Guess where that Slate article shows up on a newsbot search for "IE Firefox." Somewhere way way after four or five blurbs about Firefox errors. A Google news search for the same thing finds an article that references Slate at #10. Google's bias is to refelect the news not to make Firefox look bad like M$'s site is. The same pattern is demonstrated whenever anyone mentions a M$ search engine. The contents are filtered by meta rules that manipulate rather than inform the reader.
I can only hope that most people think like you that it's better to be informed than manipulated.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
...you won't see competitors' links at all from newsbot, if an MSN one exists.
Linus Torvalds is biased towards Linux, Bill Gates is biased towards Windows and I'm biased against "DUH"-quality articles.
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
It's a NEWS-BOT.
It's held on MSNBC
It's looking locally to find a news item before it goes outside.
Are you stupid or do you just really like badly designed shit?
But I don't see it as being any worse than other cross-market or cross-brand advertising. It's like how the iPod supports AAC over WMA. Somewhat sleazy and irritating, but pretty much the norm in today's capitalistic world.
That is not to say that we shouldn't try to stop it; only that this shouldn't appear as shocking or insidious as Slashdot is trying to present it.
Hey, at least it's not YRO article.
You're wrong. I'm looking at the beta site and it contains lots of links to other news sources.
But, what's the problem, anyway? It's a commerical enterprise. It's got a big freakin' MSNBC logo on it. Why wouldn't they give preference to their own stuff?
It's not like Google's system is perfect. I don't use their news aggregator because there is no human judgment used in its story selection. When you are looking for coverage of an event, it's just as likely to give preference to a useless tertiary wire service pickup carried in some backwater newspaper as it is to primary reporting from competent sources. That lack of bias is phony, and, worse, wastes my time.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Unlike MSN, and to a lesser extent Yahoo, Google is a primarily a search engine. It will provide a list of results based on the user query. The results will be ordered based on a predetermined method or ranking that attempts to put 'top ranked' results at top. Because Google's purpose appears to be to serve users, and not cross promote other corporate assets, users will tend to believe the results are relevant to their queries. It is true that outside sources try to manipulate the results, but that is not intentional manipulation by Google. All ads are marked, and manipulation generally obvious.
All this is idealized, but the issue remains. MSN, like most MS products, do not primarily focus on providing customer service. While all MS products provide a generally useful service, they are all have reduced usefulness because an equal priority of the product is to cross promote MS goods and services.
Why is MSN behind google? Most would say simplicity. Most of the public doesn't understand simplicity. What they understand is trust, and google, due to it's lack of inherent corporate conflicts of interest, has trust. This bit of shenanigans just reinforces MS lack of credibility.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Does anyone besides the /. reader base really care though?
Yes.
The main tool of propagandists is not the big lie, but bias:
- Distort qualitative opinions and cost-benefit analyses by giving rare occurrences of one sort lots of articles, common occurrences of the other little or none.
- Give one side front-page billing, hide the other on back pages.
- Give one side the first position in the article, the other one sentence near the end.
- Use loaded terms. (Example: If you live in a "home", on "grounds", in a "church camp", or even a "mansion" you're innocent, a "compound" and you're a demon.)
The establishment media have been doing this for years, and the cost of entry (and for some, government licensing requirements and regulations) have kept other voices from being heard. Their propaganda and viewpoints have converged into lockstep - by their herd-mentality following of the "Paper of Record"'s call on what events deserve coverage if nothing else.
The internet now makes it impossible for the establishment media to bury a story, and to keep other viewpoints marginalized by consistent biased characterization. Yet they still try. So when people discover that they can find more of what they're looking for on the net they switch their news sources. This has been a disaster for the establishment media.
A news search engine biases placement of their own content first (and possibly other like-minded content second, random content third, and different-minded last), rather than giving placement solely on the search match, enables them to pull the same class of stunt on their engine's users. To people who are searching the web to escape biased news coverage this matters very greatly. Once they understand MSNBC has done this (even at a subconscious level) they are likely to avoid it in favor of other resources.
But the presence of the biased engine means many people new to the web, who latch onto that engine first, will be long delayed in their appreciation of and access to unbiased search engines and unbiased or other-biased news sources.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
People often write stories using wire material, but the quoted material is never "rewritten". I have worked in this industry and I can tell you the wire services would litigate the hell out of anyone altering their stories (which is different than using their data in a story you are writing).
MSNBC Newsbot displays MSNBC stories first. Just like CNN or Fox or any other news outlet's search does... Wow. Gee. Imagine. The horror, the horror.
Compare the number of shares outstanding in MSFT to the shares outstanding in RHAT. Compare the breadth of ownership across the public. Sorry, but RHAT stock movements just don't matter to 99% of the investing public...30% of which probably owns MSFT.
Never happens and so bogus.
Apparently Benign Logic: all other things being equal the MS service will be selected over another.
Point of Failure in this logic: all other things are never equal, this state does not occur, there will always be qualitative differences between sources sufficient to make a choice before going to the 'is it MSNBC' question.
Ignoring that the links sometimes go to the wrong story and the content maybe biased towards their own sites, it is just plain hard to read. Yet again someone has not undertstood what seperates google from the rest is not just having the best backend algorithims, but putting a clean clear interace on top of that.With google news, I can scan the headlines and summaries quickly and efficiently. With the MS version I cannot. Sure it's a beta, but that does not mean you have to release what the programmers wrote without having the UI design team look at it.
Because it's not news.
It's amazing how sad the news situation in the US is, compared to other common wealth countries. The BBC (British), CBC (Canadian), ABC (Australian), ... stations aren't perfect, but they at least *try* to be objective and not submit to government pressure or public opinion pressures -- even though they are funded by the government. There may be freedom of the press in the U.S., but since a few key companies own most of the press and since these companies believe that 'freedom of the press' means selling the services of 'influencing public opinion' to the highest bidder, there's an amazing amount of uniformity in the 'respected' US press.
I've found Topix.net to be more encompassing than either site. The site was created by former Netscape employees. It categorizes news into very specialized topics. The search functions better than Google News's, which seems to have a much small database for many subjects when compared with Topix.
All of the news aggregates seem inadequate. Google News has a great interface, but often I don't find news articles on specific subjects when searching the site. Obviously, MSN Newsbot will be biased towards MSNBC. (BTW, the URL, newsbot.msnbc.com, is really redundant!) Even Topix, which I pimped up there, has some bad points too. Google remains the king for relevant and enticing advertisements, and the ads are sometimes annoying or irrelevant on Topix (tho not nearly as annoying as with most sites). And sometimes there are some repeats from other services; although, it is mostly OK. Are aggregates the "new" search engines?
(I know this is a little off-topic, so please excuse my tangent.)
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
- Jerome Klapka Jerome
Pot, meet kettle.
"What you don't realise is that most people don't care."
Even people I meet who have no special interest in computers know that Google is the best search engine. They care, and they don't use the Microsoft product. They know that Microsoft will try to influence them in a hidden or not-so-hidden way.
There are fewer and fewer people who "don't care", and there is more and more competition for the attention of the shrinking pool of people who can be taken advantage of because of their lack of simple knowledge of the Internet.
"Microsoft is highly profitable."
Having a virtual monopoly should not be confused with being good at business management. If you had a monopoly on water, you would make Bill Gates look poor in a week, and all the business magazines would say what a great businessman you were.
I just can't get worked up over this one. I mean, for gods' sake, it has MSNBC as part of the name, the branding, and even the URL! I have a hard time believing very many people would be so dense as to expect it to NOT favor MSNBC articles - that would be roughly like tuning into FOXNews in hopes of catching recaps of CNN.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
I think the next step will be make MS newsbot the default "news aggregator" (man, I hate this name) in Windows Longhorn and make it difficult to remove or replace.
Most people will use it just because it's the default one (the same as Internet Exploiter) and then the primary news source for this people will be an absolutely biased one (MSNBC). Scary.
Google News is flawed, so there is room for competition -- especially from the folks at Microsoft, who certainly have no inhibitions about diving headfirst into a tough market.
What's wrong with Google News?
Google News' major flaw is its inability to distinguish between news and editorial/opinion sources. Google claims they are "working to correct the problem" but so far there hasn't been much improvement.
The "sponsored links" are *clearly* not part of your search results, those are the ads. They are also clearly marked as "sponsored links", you make it sounds like they sneak them in the search results.
- sigs are for wimps.
It would be news if the above qualified for the following:
- Newsbot publicly keeps up that it is an unbiased news-site
- Newsbot is not owned (in a way) by Microsoft
- Newsbot is refusing to show the news from other equal sources, while stating otherwise
I see none of that here, so erm: why is this news ?
It's M$'s right to chose their own news over other news. Heck, they can do whatever they want with it, even spreading FUD about Linux losing shares in server-land and Windows being the most stable and fast server platform ever.
This wouldn't be a surprise, it is M$-policy.
On the other hand, we have the right to not chose newsbot for our news, and happily stay with Google's version.
So again: is this news ?
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
... just maybe the two letters "M" and "S" in it's name had something to do with it?
... just a thought...
-K
I love Google because they have no bias.
Actually, the fact that the bot has no bias is by their own admission one of their biggest problems. The Google News bot cannot tell the difference between news and editorial/opinion sources. Google is still working on a solution to this huge problem. News and Opinion are a dangerous mix.All news organizations are owned my mega-large international corporations.
All news reflects the business interests of the parent companies.
For example, in the US, that is why the Bush vs. Kerry news coverages is so incredibly biased towards Bush. For people who own millions in stock equity, etc., and for multinational corporations, 4 nore years of Bush is a big deal, money-wise.
I am not surprised that MSN routes people to MSNBC. BTW, I think that MSNBC is actually more fair-minded than CNN, CBS, ABC, etc. This is just a casual observation, but MSNBC tends to cover topics like Israel's nuclear/chemical/biological weapons programs that other news media in the US stay away from (although the NY Times also has fairly broad news coverage).
I am no fan of Microsoft, but as a news service, MSNBC is pretty good.
-Mark
I suppose it is because news has to sell, it got to have a story and a story needs a hero and villian. Never mind if they ain't there, the news editor will just make one. Look at all the conflicts in the previous century. WW2 is a nice one, the nazis were the evil ones the americans the heroes except what is the difference between "no jews allowed" and "whites only" what percentage of jews were gassed and what percentage of indians were slaughtered? America went west and took the land owned by those who didn't make proper use of it (or whatever excuse was used to put indians in reservation) the germans went east.
Afghanistan had the russians as the bad guys and the noble arabs. The same arabs that america is now fighting.
It is intrestting that the BBC is far less symphatetic against the IRA or the rote arme fraction (however that is spelled) or the baskian seperatists. During the recent spain bombing it was not just the spanish goverment that was hoping it were baskians who did it. The news that it was arabs was a bit of a blow to the european news agencies that had tried to make the terror war appear to be only a problem for american. Despite the fact that most european countries have their own terror wars going on or had until recently.
There is no truly unbiased newsource in the world. Not google, not the BBC and most certainly not any american owned station. The best you can do is get your news from multiple locations. And no watching BBC and CNN does not count. If there is not at least one newsource you use where the biase does not offend you then you are being misinformed. Or the other way around, if you agree with the "angle" of the news story then you are being lied to. It is just lies you like to hear.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This is exactly the kind of reason I unsubscribed to Conventional Wisdom.
I read a lot of Mac Os and Linux blogs, and notice a seeming complacency that...
MSIE is on hold. No explorer for web space while Longhorn is being readied. Okay lets party!
Microsoft is exiting Media? What could be sweetieyah?
---
He isn't sleeping people! What is he up to? Dumping media money pits? Laying Low on the internet? Simply wanting to retire and take it easy?
I say he had to dump his media connections to in attempts to "provide" an embedded convergence OS. Windows on HDTV.
There is more going on than simply restructuring to do business to business better.... he is wanting MS to be core to the biggest market there is, the boob tube slaves.
I don't see anything strange here, really, where is the real news? I would do the same thing in their place, who wouldn't? Also google when you search for something and it happens to be listed also in google news, it put a link to google news as first result with a nice newspaper-icon on its left.
I think they both are in right to do that and they would be stupid if they didn't.
Given M$'s slave driving ambitions, the reference to autocracy must be intentional. Microsoft's audacity never ceases to amaze.
If you like that kind of thing, you might as well do your research in pre 1990 Pravda or Tass which are essentially identical. Remember the Russian proverb as you do, "There's no truth in the news and no news in the truth."
The admission of preference of message is a symptom of much greater dishonesty. The other symptom is the huge proportion of the Microsoft budget that goes into PR, hype and slander.
For all the alledged "noise" RMS is accused of, can anyone imagine him doing something as pointless as the things Bill Gates did for XP launch? Imagine RMS renting helicopters to transport a carboard box, hiring Madonna and putting his face on a 40 foot high screen to announce a new version of emacs. That, my friend, is the "news" MSNBC trumpets.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
That I have a mouse wheel.
If you've learned nothing else about Microsoft over the years, you should at least know that they haven't grown by being "better" at anything.
Microsoft has plenty of technical victories:
Presumably they will be employing the same type of biasing toward their search engine as well.
...
Nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
That's not true at all. This is another tool of public manipulation. First, the order of article reporting is manipulated. Second, the same article by the same author can be manipulated by omission of sections. The fact that M$ "partnered" with NBC shows a keen desire to shape public opinion through "news".
I have an example of the first kind of manipulation and the reasons for it here.
They can perform the second kind of manipulation for the same reasons with a traditional justification that makes no sense on the internet. "News" articles were traditionally written in a style defined by print advertising. The entire story is confined to a single sentence opening paragraph which is explained by further short, often single sentence paragraphs. The paragraphs declined in order of perceived reader interest. This allowed the editor and print setter flexibility in page layout so that the adverts could all fit. There is obviously no longer a need to print, "All the news that fits," and more traditional and informative writing styles are the coin of internet news. It is, however, just as easy for M$NBC to cull articles to twist their meaning in the name of "reader interest" as it ever was.
Other news services, such as Google, operate on different principles. Their presentation shows duplicate articles in the same place so that it's easy to compare versions without making it difficult to navigate different stories. Google seeks to inform, Microsoft seeks to manipulate.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Wouldn't you do the same?
you mods are idiots. that is not insightful, fools.
...duh?
Google also refuses to advertise for firearm sites. They still index them, but will refuse to advertise them. Try doing a google search for terms like pistol or rifle. Rifle turns up one link to a german artist who has nothing to do with firearms. You'd tend to think that the various firarm manufacturers would be happy to buy advertisements, right?
I don't read AC A human right
--
Power to the Peaceful
Based on other comments in this story and others, I'd say many Slashdotters still haven't figured that shit out.
--
Power to the Peaceful
Afghanistan had the russians as the bad guys and the noble arabs. The same arabs that america is now fighting.
Not quite, we're fighting the Taliban, which are a distinct group from the Northern Alliance who we did support against the Russians. After the Taliban we're trying to either integrate or eliminate all the warlords that sprung up in the vacuum. Of course, we have this problem today because we didn't help them rebuild after Russia left...
How about this one? A little over 200 years ago we fought a war against England, now we're the closest of allies! Heck, we're even sorta on nice terms with Russia.
I don't read AC A human right
There's nothing wrong with this. You flip on a particular television channel and what do you get? Commercials for that channel's television shows or that channel's parent company's other channels.
Radio channels will use their own airtime to promote themselves or their parent company's interests.
Etc, etc...
The bottom line is if a person doesn't like it, they should just use a different news search.
MS "admits" it's "biased" toward MSNBC.
Using the word "admit" makes it sound as though they were prodded and prodded and they finally broke and "admitted" this. Not true.
Outside Slashdot.
They have such a tight knit community going on within Slashdot that they think their way is the only one that works. While this is great for those people inside Slashdot, and we have all read about how great they are to post on, it doesn't convince the rest of the world, and OS usage statistics prove this.
Why do they insist on being blinded by the branding? They could easily challenge Microsoft if they did what Microsoft does, but with a bigger brand, instead they choose to take away the very thing that Microsoft is popular in with their own offering.
Just for fun, guys.
Slashdot links to Newsforge, Everything2, and other affiliates all the time. It also has a very uninformed slant against Microsoft (think of how many people now believe SP2 RC2 only boots on half the computers it's installed on, all because of one incorrect article posted last week).
People love to forget that this website is corporate-owned and full of even MORE bias than this article is claiming about Microsoft. I'm still laughing over that "Microsoft Violates Human Rights In China" headline from several months back.
This site is owned by a corporation. You should question every single thing posted on it. It amuses me that so many anti-capitalists post on a website designed to make money for a company, complete with pointless subscription fees and banner ads. If I was a Slashdot editor, I'd be laughing at the situation whereby people use my site to bash others for bias and greed when my site is a vehicle for just that.
Hell, now we have to deal with these horrible new sections. Everything is lumped into "IT" or "Linux." Were the subscribers consulted about this, or was that whole thing about people being able to participate in Slashdot just another forgotten claim?
From one frustrated Slashdotter.
Of course, news is a product. Someone makes it, and someone sells it. No money, no news. It isn't sacred text, you know.
If you buy a copy of The Washington Post, you don't see it running reports from The Washington Times. Ditto for thousands of other examples. Seeing MSNBC reports on an MSNBC site should not be surprising.
It's not possible to create totally objective reports on the news. All reports are colored, in one degree or another, by the concerns and interests of the people who created those reports. Even Google's allegedly objective news site is biased by the choices the developers made, by the choices made about which sources are included and which are not, etc. Even if you participate in an event, rather than rely on news reporting about it, your own memories and impression are also influenced by your concerns and interests.
It's the job of professional reporters to make an effort to be as objective as possible. It's your job as a news consumer to understand that. Knowing who is spinning the news, and why, is just as important as understanding the bare facts that many naive people confuse with the news.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
An article about biased news sources, posted on Slashdot.
Slashdot, despite being owned by VA Software, does not have post this fact on the front page or in very many news stories about Microsoft or Linux or Apple. (I'd call MS and Apple competitors of VA, but VA looks like a joke when you compare the financials.) ALL of slashdot's articles are biased towards VA's product. MSN searching MSNBC is supposed to shock me? Hell at least its automatic. Slashdot is HANDPICKED bias, all day everyday.
Why the hell would I go gun shopping on the net. I go to a shop/gun show for that.
Is what is the criteria to determine if the articles are equal. MSNBC and a lot of other sites like NEWS. COM zdnet Syndicate a lot of their stories from the associate press. The articles are identical the only difference is the ads that are embedded around the story
If these equal articles show the MSBC syndicated version and none of the other syndicated versions, it would be better than google's unbiased newsbot because completely redundant articles would be eliminated. And Microsoft could do this by using the Associate Press's feed as a baseline for comparison.
This guy has a point. The shit we complain about microsoft we do here. We have our software preferences and we act as if they are the only solution. Microsoft is on top and we naturally want to take them down. I don't even know why the editors bother to put half the MS articles on the front page because it just ensues lots of flame wars and propaganda. Every time I see an MS expoit on the front page, I think to myself "It doesn't affect a lot of people here so why should they care." Pretend this was a site dedicated on Toyota and we constantly hear how Dodge cars are breaking down. Who would care?
This isn't meant to troll or be flame bait. I just want to say talking about the same old anti-whatever junk doesn't do any good.
MS newsbot "self-censoring"?
You haven't seen anything yet.
Go check out this movie:
http://www.buzzflash.com/orwell/default.htm
It's better than Fahrenheit 9/11. It explains how de-regulation of the media creates hundreds of stations that represent the views of a handful.
The use of cookies to track the news you selected is a good ideia as it can fine tune your preferences.
It is insightful in its humor, you idiot!
This really isn't that big of a deal. Honestly, if google had it's own news publishing site, I'm sure it's search thing would be biased to that too. Why wouldn't you want to promote your other business units?
Translation: Corporate media sucks, and Microsoft does too. Go back to sleep.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
If the same article is on multiple sites not giving the MSN site precedence would be plain poor bidness. That's if they really do mean the *same* exact article.
Meanwhile, speaking of Google vs. Microsoft, I just got some mail from a Hotmail user, inquiring about the church budget (which I prepare) for her department. Lots of happy financial keywords, and what's the random(?) ad-sig? "Overwhelmed by debt? Find out how to ~QDig Yourself Out of Debt~R from MSN Money." (~Q and ~R are exactly as seen... Pine apparently doesn't like MS's "smart" quotes.)
So, is that really random, or is MS doing what everyone's coming unglued over Google doing?
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
MS = Umpteen thousands of viruses and exploits versus the combined rest of computerdom since de beginning of times and stuff, some hundreds maybe
yaaay1!!!1!1 Microsoft wins again! MS r000lz!
Moral of story, the more viruses and exploits you have for your.... "products".... the more billions you make! Get cracking you slacker coders, write total CRAP, get paid BIG BUCK$$$$! Hooo-RAYYY for unethical predatory capitalism, it's the only true way! Don't forget your management and advertising and marketing and political bribery folks, the ratio is 100 to one for engineers, and you'll score big!!
This "branding" aside, I find the MS site not all that well done. First off, the photos are way too large. With news.google.com, I can load the page, and see 10 or 12 stores at once. With microsoft, I might see one headline and a large photo. I run 1024x768 due to my eyesight, and so increasing resolution is not an option. The microsoft side simply does not have anything that appeals to me as it is currently designed. In addition, You need to click on the story link to see the other news sites; goolge lists them under the "dominant" headline-Drew
What are you smoking? Googling for "rifle" turns up over 3 million hits, the first hit being the NRA, and the entire first page being relevant, with interest groups and manufacturers.
..just their brand of bas, which is automagically "fair" to their way of thinking.
Look around, people don't want to read/hear/view news that upsets their pre conceived notions. The iraq war is a prime example of this, people made up their minds early on, now it's settled, some support it, some don't, the numbers have only changed minutely. Look at talk radio, a bastion of news junkies. People get into a rut of listening to the talker who most closely reflects their preconceived notions, at the level of intellectualism they are comfortable at. Look at popular political web boards and forums, they are groupings of almost identical thinkers,and the posts are basically examples of bashing those e-vile "other guys" who cause all the problems.
People-basic human nature- by and large *don't* seek out any radically opposing views. Once folks hit comfortable semi stable adulthood, they become pretty set in their ways, they support "their sports team" "their political party" "their view on economics" "their favorite tv shows" "their brands of beer and whatnot" and etc. "news" is and will be the same, no matter how many choices they have. Change is scary to people, they don't like to do it.
News is the same, google or msn or any other aggregator, people will wind up sticking to the same small group of channels/websites/outlets that they are comfortable with, news that supports their version of reality, they want to feel like they are correct in what they believe. And as to what they pick to look at, they will hit one of the top number displayed-just like web searching-and rarely go beyond that. How many articles on google are just rehashes of the same AP feed most of the time? How many people really click on the "... xxx big number more" link and seek out 20 different versions of the same story from all over the planet on any single news worty item, as opposed to just mashing one link from one of the top few displayed on the main page?
It's a rare person who will struggle constantly to actually seek out extremely differing viewpoints from their own. Some do to a small degree, but that's it, some, and I would bet it's a very small number.
Really, I'm not.
What, are we supposed to be shocked about this revelation or something? After all, it's Microsoft we're talking about here..
Sometimes a humourous post is insightful. The humour brings out a truth that might be otherwise be missed in the noise of postings.
This is one of those posts. I find it both funny AND insightful. Moderators, you can only choose one.
Conflict of interests?
offering us only their biased news. I'm sticking to Slashdot for now. At least they're still a bastion for objective reporting.
Has anyone else gone to see The Manchurian Candidate [imdb.com], yet?
Spoiler, sort of:
There is a clear series of shots of Ben Marco using Google to search for information on the internet.
As it is a huge, mainstream movie (with a wide audience range; there were a number of elderly viewers there, as well as middle-aged people, college-aged students, and teenagers), that is definitely an example on how it is becoming more and more mainstream, by the day.
MS has big name-brand recognition, but Google is moving up, big time.
Read a little closer. I was talking about PAID advertisements. IE if Barrett wants to buy an ad for anybody searching for "M82 rifle", as their site doesn't show up at the top, Google's management won't accept the ad.
Google Protest Site
I don't read AC A human right
... and in other news, the sun rose in the east this morning.
Scientists predict that it may in fact set in the west sometime this evening.
Me? Debunk an American myth? And take my life in my hands?
Wow, that's surprising.
Maybe it's the fact that it says "MSNBC News" at the top of the screen, or the big MSNBC logo in the corner, but it is blatantly obvious that Newsbot is an MSNBC product.
http://newsbot.msn.com
Take a look - MSNBC logos all over. Why is it news at all that it prefers MSNBC stories?
I don't get the real problem with this. The summary says that, all other things being equal, MSNBC pages get priority. So what? If the heuristic analysing a pages' relevance gives the same value to multiple pages, what criteria do you use to figure out a display order? Assuming their releveance algorithm (which is the part of a search engine the public cares about) works properly, then the MSNBC page would be just as relevant as any of the following few pages. Now if their heuristic pumped MSNBC pages ahead of more relevant non-MSNBC, that would be worthy of discussion. But in that case, that would just be a deliberate flaw in Newsbot, meaning it would produce less relevant results, meaning in turn that fewer people would use it.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
It's not possible to create totally objective reports on the news. All reports are colored, in one degree or another, by the concerns and interests of the people who created those reports.
There's a big difference between the kind of bias inherent in one's point of view -- that is, the sum of ones experience, culture, personality (or programming if you happen to be an automated aggregator) etc -- and the kind of bias inherent in promoting a specific agenda. The former allows for change with better emerging information or argument. The latter allows only for change as it suits the agenda.
Which kind of "bias" is better in the context of news reporting?
Even Google's allegedly objective news site is biased by the choices the developers made, by the choices made about which sources are included and which are not, etc.
A comparison of Google's news site vs MSN's is probably actually a perfect demonstration of a latent undirected bias vs an agenda driven bias. Sure, on any single dimensional continuum representing degrees of bias one way or another, Google will not hit dead center unless they've very improbably happened on perfection. But I challenge you to find a bias that favors the particular ideological, political, or economic interests of, well, just about anybody -- especially a bias as clear as Microsoft's.
Tweet, tweet.
Bears continue to defecate in the woods.
Vatican man with pointy hat remains catholic
The problem is that the "product" is supposed to be an (unbiased) news aggregate. As someone who runs an aggregator (Mac Aggregate Tracker), I can tell you there is zero net benefit in even appearing to show favor, let alone in specifically saying you give special treatment, as MS has admitted.
Maybe you don't see it, but the real result is probably going to be that at no time will anyone else scoop MSNBC according to Newsbot. Their software will gather news from other sites and if it finds something that MSNBC isn't covering, it will simply not publish. Instead, it would likely notify some grunt reporter to kick out an article so that MSNBC gets top billing. Holding news in that way, or any other shenanigans they come up with because they decide to self-promote, does not benefit the news consumer.
I would disagree that the MS site " is supposed to be an (unbiased) news aggregate". From the MS point of view, I'm sure it is supposed to be a proft-making enterprise. In that, they have much company. Every commercial news provider I'm aware of must a profit; that reality influences the stories they cover and the product they put on the market. (The only noncommercial news providers I know about are funded and controlled by their governments.)
Since aggregators contain no original reporting, they can't scooped. Every story they point to has already been published, so, in a very real sense, aggregators are scooped on every story.
My problem with all aggregators is precisely the lack of human involvement in story selection. I've given up using Google because there's every chance that the primary link for a given story will be a pickup from a minor league source half a world away from the event. Google seems as likely to use a Slashdot story about an event as it is an original report in something like the International Herald Tribune.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I would disagree that the MS site " is supposed to be an (unbiased) news aggregate". From the MS point of view, I'm sure it is supposed to be a proft-making enterprise.
This is not about what MS would like to claim, it is about how they are perceived in the marketplace. As others have noted, paid placement is something the marketplace has voted overwhelmingly undesirable. That is as true for news aggregators as it is for search engines.
Since aggregators contain no original reporting, they can't scooped. Every story they point to has already been published, so, in a very real sense, aggregators are scooped on every story.
Incorrect. The intent of an aggregate is to scoop every site I never/less often visit. That is why it needs to be fair to work properly. But if I find that going to any site directly gets me news faster than going to the aggregate (because of delays to allow top placement of MSNBC articles), then it makes it much less likely I will use the aggregate. A bias does not benefit the aggregate in the marketplace.
Google seems as likely to use a Slashdot story about an event as it is an original report in something like the International Herald Tribune.
Well maybe, just maybe, how Slashdot covers a story (i.e., included discussion) is more newsworthy than a link to any standard AP wire regurgitation. Wouldn't that make Google's form of selection more like what you want than Microsoft's is? I think it's funny that you prefer a human editor to judge what makes a better story, but for some reason you are trying to defend MS for using an automated system to place not the best story first, but merely their story. Make up your mind.
1. An MS site giving preference to stories prepared by MSNBC is not paid placement.
2. Scooping every site is clearly unlikely and, probably, impossible. But, an aggregator does not create any news. I don't see any effective difference, in terms of fairness, between an algorithm, responding to inputs hidden from the user, floating a wire service pickup from the Podunk Press to the top versus a human being working in a company owned by MS and NBC giving preference to a story prepared by MSNBC over, for example, a similar story prepared by CNN. I certainly wouldn't expect to see the MSNBC story at the CNN site. The fact that the MSNBC site uses an aggregator is not important to me, as a consumer. What is important is the news that MSNBC publishes, however generated.
Slashdot does not generate original reporting. Slashdot does not engage in journalism. The discussions are, to be generous, barely on a par with transcribed talk radio comments.
I'm not defending MS. (What is it about Slashdot readers that they think any point of disagreement with the party line represents a defense of MS?) I've said that I am no more surprised that MS gives preference to its own stories on its own site than I am surprised that any other news source gives preference to its stories versus stories produced by its competitors. I do not assume that a site's use of aggregating software carries with it a moral commitment to place stories according to an allegedly random and perfectly fair algorithm. I think Google's site is evidence that such a random selection is less than useful, wastes the reader's time, and is fair only in the sense that no judgment at all is applied to distinguish between sources and their likely value, credibility, and usefulness.
Google, then, delivers a kind of bogus impartiality, akin to what would happen if someone blindy grabbed newspapers off of a news vendor's shelf. I suppose it could be seen as representing an odd sort of fairness and lack of bias. But, since do not expect news sources to avoid bias and point of view, that kind of fairness is useless to me.
I've stated that I gave up on Google's aggregator because it often buries reports from significant and relevant sources while floating worthless secondary and tertiary reports to the top. The human editor that I trust more than any other to decide what's important is me, not some algorithm. I not only want to know what's going on, I want to know how it is being reported in the world's media. For example, if Tony Blair shuffles his cabinet, the sources I want to read are the UK press. I know the political leanings of that press, and how they report a story is of as much interest to me as the actual factsthey report. I certainly wouldn't want to waste my time reading the story that Google floats to the top. That story is just as likely to be from Xinhua or El Pais or the El Segundo Gazette as it is from The Times,the Guardian, or the Telegraph.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
1. An MS site giving preference to stories prepared by MSNBC is not paid placement.
Incorrect. In fact, it is the worst form of paid placement. That #1 slot has an infinite price for any other news service and a zero price point for MSNBC. How you missed something that obvious is beyond me.
I certainly wouldn't expect to see the MSNBC story at the CNN site. The fact that the MSNBC site uses an aggregator is not important to me, as a consumer.
It must be nice to so comfortably pull the wool over your own eyes. As a consumer, you absolutely should care, because it does affect the presentation of the news whether you realize it or not.
I'm not defending MS. (What is it about Slashdot readers that they think any point of disagreement with the party line represents a defense of MS?) I've said that I am no more surprised that MS gives preference to its own stories on its own site than I am surprised that any other news source gives preference to its stories versus stories produced by its competitors.
You are defending MS. I agree that it's natural to expect them to do this, but to pretend that the consumer is unaffected goes beyond any party line. Only MSNBC benefits from the bias, and at least they know that better than you, or they wouldn't be doing it in the first place.
I've stated that I gave up on Google's aggregator because it often buries reports from significant and relevant sources while floating worthless secondary and tertiary reports to the top. The human editor that I trust more than any other to decide what's important is me, not some algorithm.
I see no evidence that MSNBC articles are more relevant for a topic than ones chosen by Google. I see no evidence that a human editor is involved in the story selection at MSNBC. Please stick to the debate at hand instead of trying to start tangents.
1. So, you are arguing that when CNN carries a CNN story in preference to a FOX story, that is a paid placement and an unethical act? You would have me believe that a news site giving preference to content produced by its own employeess is wrong. That's absurd.
2. What wool? What eyes? What are you talking about? It's an MSNBC site. The fact that it uses an aggregator doesn't commit it to selecting stories at random. I expect it to favor it's own amterial. What's your problem?
3. I am not defending MS. Nor did I say that the story selection on the MSNBC site won't impact the consumer. I'm a consumer. I don't expect Google, MSNBC or any other news source to bring me all the news in a perfectly objective and unbiased manner. That's impossible and, frankly, undesirable. I know that there are reasons why a story is given preference on Google and on MSNBC, and that other reports are available elsewhere.
4. Maybe MSNBC stories are "no more relevant"than Googles. Maybe not. Depends on your definition of relevant. Both sites are pretty useless to me, because random selection is not equal to fiar selection.
Frankly, I've lost track of what it is you're trying to say. It sounds like you're arguing that the MS site is acting unethically by giving preference to its own stories. If so, I think that's a ludicrous position. You accuse me of defeding this alleged unethical behavior, when all I've done is point to the behavior.
News does not pop into existence in a vacuum. All news is created and reported by someone with a point of view, ither interests, pressures, and a deadline. If news consumers don't understand that and make an effort to comprehend the influences working on their chosen news providers, they are naive. By definition, software aggregators create and report no news. An aggregators selection might appear to be random, but random doesn't mean fair, and random certainly doesn't mean intelligent, useful, or comprehensive.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
1. So, you are arguing that when CNN carries a CNN story in preference to a FOX story, that is a paid placement and an unethical act? You would have me believe that a news site giving preference to content produced by its own employeess is wrong. That's absurd.
No, you're being absurd because you're trying to build your argument by straddling both sides of the fence. For this point, you're claiming it's an MSNBC property and they can do whatever they want; I agree with that point. Elsewhere you will claim it is of no great concern to an aggregate's consumers, which is not true. You need to find a consistent argument to continue this debate.
2. What wool? What eyes? What are you talking about? It's an MSNBC site. The fact that it uses an aggregator doesn't commit it to selecting stories at random. I expect it to favor it's own amterial. What's your problem?
Again, I don't take issue with that point (in isolation). I would naturally expect the same behavior associated with MS. They are again leveraging their monopoly to control the consumer. Newsbot is just another facet of that operation, and that is my problem.
3. I am not defending MS. Nor did I say that the story selection on the MSNBC site won't impact the consumer.
You've done both. If you re-read your posts and don't see it, I feel sorry for you.
Frankly, I've lost track of what it is you're trying to say. It sounds like you're arguing that the MS site is acting unethically by giving preference to its own stories. If so, I think that's a ludicrous position. You accuse me of defeding this alleged unethical behavior, when all I've done is point to the behavior.
No, my issue has been with your inconsistent view of the matter. I don't think MSNBC is necessarily being unethical simply because they favor their their material. Go back and actually read what I wrote and you'll see my concern is that, in publishing as an aggregate, there is a potential for further abuse of power. History has shown that, for MS, that kind of potential is continually realized.
All news is created and reported by someone with a point of view, ither interests, pressures, and a deadline. If news consumers don't understand that and make an effort to comprehend the influences working on their chosen news providers, they are naive. By definition, software aggregators create and report no news.
Then you argue from a position of ignorance. As some who runs an aggregator, I assure that we create meta-news. Using a (fair) aggregator not only exposes you to the news, it adds information about who is covering it and who isn't. Did you bother to look at the MAT site I posted? Even if you don't use OS X, it should be clear looking at the page that, at a minimum, information about timeliness is reported. Could I take money from Apple to list their relatively infrequent updates first? Yeah, but that doesn't benefit the viewer and so I won't.
Your position would be like saying "diff" doesn't have a value. It is precisely the single-source influences you mention that make an aggregator so important in highlighting the differences to the news consumer. Newsbot is flawed because it is less about reporting those differences (the true purpose of an aggregator) and more about further pushing MSNBC content.
Meta-news? What's that?
Unless you send reporters out to cover stories and write original reports, you are not creating news. Your aggregator would not work unless someone else was creating and writing the news.
If some people like aggregators, fine. I don't. As for "highlighting the differences", I haven't seen any aggregator yet than can tell me "ABC reports this story in this way, but XYZ reports it this way, and here's why." I don't believe that can be done without human intervention. (Running a diff on the copy would be pointless.)
The bottom line is you seem to think aggregators bring a degree of fairness to a world full of biased and unfair media sources. I don't, because aggregators can only point to copy written by someone else. If a story is unfair, it remains unfair after an aggregator points to it. The pseudo-random selection of aggregators, therefore, provides only an illusion of fairness.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"