If there was any further doubt that Google News is a huge shipment of fail when it comes to content aggregation, this little experiment of mine banishes that worry.
Doing a simple search of Google News for the search phrase "global warming" I note that at least 6 of the entries on the first three pages (all within an hour of this writing) are Heartland Institute shitspam "articles", all engaged in the typical debunking we've come to associate with the craptacular anti-science polemicists of the right. Some examples (after the jump)
A Must-Read Book on Global Warming
Scores of Peer-Reviewed Studies Contradict Global Warming Alarmism
Alabama Biologist Fails Global Warming Teaching Test
Gore Refuses Global Warming Prediction Challenge
I reiterate...this is simply within the last hour or so of this posting.
What is this, some kind of semantic chaff designed to gum up Google News search algorithms on this issue? They're cranking several of these news "stories" out an hour, and this is just one thinktank here.
Those of us who actually care about global warming need to be concerned about this. The fact that Google News blows is not, itself, news. But its deficiencies allow the newstream it puts together to be easily manipulated by organizations with an agenda. Are Google executives unaware of this?