BuzzMachine

The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

How big is Google’s news net?

5 comments on How big is Google’s news net?

How big is Google’s news net?

: Vin Crosbie looked at GoogleNews’ usage of sources and found that though they monitor 7,000 sites, only a few are used often (in the display, I assume, as opposed to the news search). That’s not wildly surprising. But what is surprising is the use of a few oddball sources: It’s why you keep seeing AP stories via China. Vin’s calculations of top sites used include:

Reuters 175 stories 18% of all

New York Times 80 stories 8% of all

Voice of America 67 stories 7% of all

Xinhua 67 stories 7% of all

Bloomberg 61 stories 6% of all

Washington Post 61 stories 6% of all

ABC News 49 stories 5% of all

Boston Globe 26 stories 2% of all

CNN 22 stories 2% of all

San Francisco Chronicle 17 stories 1% of all

CNN International 17 stories 1% of all

Christian Science Monitor 15 stories 1% of all

Toronto Star 13 stories 1% of all

Seattle Post Intelligencer 13 stories 1% of all

United Press International 12 stories 1% of all

By the way, when my son had to find UPI stories for some (very outdated) assignment at school, I sent searching and the only paper in which I could find them anymore was the Washington Times.

What Vin’s numbers also don’t reveal is the use of some really crackpot sources (while ignoring much larger weblogs and other sources).

This is a good subject for more study.

5 responses to “How big is Google’s news net?”

  1. bill Avatar
    bill

    BTW, the Rev. Moon org. owns the WaTimes — which bought the shell of the defunct UPI. You’ll ever only see UPI in that paper.
    bill

  2. billg Avatar
    billg

    I assume that the more content a source produces and disseminates, the higher its numbers in this kind of survey. There’s a lot of Reuters, NYT, and Xinhua stuff out there.
    Google and other aggregators aren’t useful to me. They don’t help me find the story I want from the source I want. I guess they’re OK if you believe pseduo-random selection means “fair”, and don’t really care about the nature of the source that produced the story you’re reading.

  3. Vin Crosbie Avatar
    Vin Crosbie

    Jeff:
    Google News’ consistently prominent play of Xinhua’s news amuses me. For example, at this moment the lead story on Google News is a Xinhua story datelined Washington, D.C., and headlined ‘Information leading to US terror alert was years old: reports’ (http://news.google.com/url?ntc=0M0A0&q=http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-08/03/content_1705634.htm). Is it really logical that the most authoritative source of that story in the U.S. capitol is the Red Chinese news agency?
    Likewise, is it logical that this Xinhua story might be the most linked-to story that Google can find about that topic, particularly when that story is being prominently reported by all of the major U.S. news sources today? Many folks who’ve commented about my analysis have simply presumed that Xinhua ranks high because Google News find a lot of sites linking to Xinhua stories. But that doesn’t make sense. The only places where news outlets prominently use Xinhua stories are in Third World countries (Paraguay, Myamar, Sudan, etc.) where there are few news Web sites (or Web sites of any kind).
    No, something is amiss in Google News’ algorithms. The same few sources among 7,000 tend to be used, and a some of those few consistent sources for it are rather curious choices.

  4. Ebb Tide Avatar
    Ebb Tide

    http://www.memeorandum.com/
    This is a neat site that aggregates blogs talking about news stories, I use it as much as I use Google News just to see what is going on throughout the day. Memeorandum also uses the left column to show who is quoted in that edition, updated throughout the day.
    (not sure if it is touched by human hands or not, sorry)

  5. Michael Zimmer Avatar
    Michael Zimmer

    Just becuase GoogleNews is “un-touched by human hands” doesn’t mean its free of bias. Read more: “Bias in Computer Systems” (pdf)