Google's Experimental Newsroom Avoids Negative Headlines

Posted by Soulskill on Friday July 11, 2014 @01:33AM from the giant-earthquake-provides-thousands-with-early-access-to-afterlife dept.

theodp writes: After Brazil's dramatic World Cup defeat by Germany, writes NPR's Aarti Shahani, Google's experimental newsroom focused on search trends that didn't rub salt in Brazil's wounds, choosing to not publish a single trend on Brazilian search terms. Copywriter Tessa Hewson said they were just too negative. "We might try and wait until we can do a slightly more upbeat trend." It's a decision that puzzles Shahani, but producer Sam Clohesy explained, "a negative story about Brazil won't necessarily get a lot of traction in social." In old-school newsrooms, if it bleeds, it leads. But because this new newsroom is focused on getting content onto everyone's smartphone, marketing expert Rakesh Agrawal says, editors may have another bias: to comb through the big data in search of happy thoughts.

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Re:sounds like North Korea news by jebblue · 2014-07-11 06:22 · Score: 0, Troll

Why do young people and liberal nuts dis Fox? Is it because they don't like what their parents like in the former and don't want to grow up in the latter? Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS, the only difference is that Fox will at least on more occasions tell things as they are regardless whether college kiddies or liberal fanatics understand the content.