Foggy day for Google News
In Turkey, 56 people were feared to have beenkilled in plane crash. A teenager in New Zealand had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in a £9.7 million computer hacking ring. And in Sudan a British teacher had been sentenced to jail after her class had named a teddy bear Mohamed.
But in Florida conditions were partly cloudy, with a chance of afternoon storms, and that - for a moment, anyway - was the most important story in the world according to Google News, one of the most widely watched news sites.
There were a couple of 'related stories' - 42, in fact - mostly from local newspapers in Florida, which also sparkled with headlines like 'Some fog, some clouds today' and 'Spring-like weather ahead.' Watergate it wasn't.
How could a spot of moisture in the air over the East coast of the US have enveloped the world news agenda?
A spokesman for Google explained that Google news partly ranked stories according to the "critical mass" of similar stories - for instance, if a number of similar stories were posted within a few minutes of one another, "that would make Google news deem them more relevant."
In other words, local Florida news services rose up and took Google by storm, so to speak?
A statement clarified the matter:"The headlines on the Google News homepage are selected entirely by a computer formula, based on many factors including how often and on what sites a story appears elsewhere on the web."
So the computer did it.
Still, it was pretty weird, wasn't it? "There do seem to have been more important stories around this morning, yes," the spokesman said.
Well what's wrong with the news being bland? I am sick and tired of hearing about war and violence, as if that's any news.
Where's the good news? Anything positive usually makes it to the middle/end of a news bulletin, or the "oddly enough" section of ezines..
enough with the negative.
Posted by: erika | Dec 3, 2007 9:32:25 PM
Seems normal to me...whatever happens in the US is the only news that matters - it's always been like this.
Posted by: mahesh mistry | Dec 7, 2007 4:03:46 PM
I'm more interested in the fact that a story about fog in Florida on this website had a picture of the Sydney Harbour Bridge attached to it?
Posted by: Peter | Dec 9, 2007 3:02:27 AM