On February 5, 2005, Michelle Malkin wrote:


GOOGLE NEWS: NOT SO FAIR AND BALANCED

By Michelle Malkin · February 05, 2005 06:49 PM

Actual headline featured in Google News' top U.S. stories section:
Gonzales confirmed: war criminal to head US Justice Department <http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m9478&l=i&size=1&hd=0>

On a somewhat related note, I received the following e-mail from Google News recently that might be of interest to other bloggers wondering what the criteria are for inclusion as Google News sources:

Hi Michelle,
Thank you for your note. We have reviewed www.michellemalkin.com but cannot include it in Google News at this time. We do not include news-related blogs or other news-related sites that are written and maintained by a single individual. Similarly, we do not include sites that do not have a formal editorial review process. We appreciate your taking the time to contact us and will log your site for consideration should our requirements change.

Regards,
The Google Team


By coincidence, reader Patsy Griffiths alerts me that Charles Johnson <http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=14598_Google_N
ews_Turns_Us_Down_Again#comments> at the indispensable Little Green Footballs received a similar turndown from Google News:

Hi Charles,
Thank you for your note. We reviewed http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog and cannot include it in Google News at this time. We do not include sites that are purely news aggregators, and we were not able to find any stories on your site that were not from outside sources.

We will log your site for consideration should we alter our policy. Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.

Regards,
The Google Team


Glad to know I'm in good company, but as Charles points out, Google News' criteria are rather odd:

I replied, pointing out that LGF has become rather well-known for a story that was not "from an outside source"—Bush Guard Documents: Forged—and offered to give them links to numerous other original pieces we’ve published. Our first request received a reply in less than an hour. So far there’s no response to our second request.
Note that the Google News index now searches quite a few blogs (including Power Line, Polipundit, and Wonkette) and includes other sites with, to say the least, serious credibility problems (including hard-core anarchist site Infoshop, and Justin Raimondo’s paleocon antisemitic site antiwar.com). In this context, Google’s reply to me seems rather odd.


Yes, and especially so when you see that LGF is excluded from Google News sources while uruknet.info, the nutball news outlet that labeled Alberto Gonzales a "war criminal" and that publishes propaganda reports from Saddam Hussein's legal team, gets top Google News headline treatment.

Something's definitely screwy. In my letter, Google News said "we do not include sites that do not have a formal editorial review process." Is the presumption that group blogs have a formal editorial review process because they are run by more than one person, but that an individual blog is incapable of satisfactory self-editing? If an individual blog does investigative reporting or publishes original documents, as LGF has done and as this blog occasionally does, is the "formal editorial review process" requirement waived?

Why is Democratic Underground <http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d&
q=democratic+underground+blog&btnG=Search+News> ... a Google News source, but not LGF? Why is a blog that recycles gossip and drinking games a Google News source, but not this blog?

Got something to say about all this? Send your comments to source-suggestions@google.com





http://michellemalkin.com/archives/001431.htm

On February 18, 2005 Google has stopped indexing Uruknet.info as a news source

(The latest Uruknet article included in the Google News index is //www.uruknet.info/?p=m9780, February 18, 2005) .

We wrote to Google News but we didn't receive any reply.

We repeat Malkin's words:

Got something to say about all this? Send your comments to source-suggestions@google.com


Or simply click here to fill a speedy form









See also:

http://64.233.183.104/searchq=cache:HJiCXIvI71cJ:www.rightwi
ngerz.com/+Gonzales+confirmed:+war+criminal+to+head+US+Justi ...

2/6/2005
The Propaganda Machine that is Google News

— Jennifer Rast @ 4:06 pm
Michelle Marlkin’s blog points out the extreme bias and bogus criteria for the news sources used by Google News. Google actually uses as a news source the rabidly liberal, den of insanity that is the Democratic Underground, yet they feel Michelle’s blog does not qualify because it doesn’t have an editorial review process. They also refuse to include as a source Little Green Footballs, the site that broke the rathergate story. This looks especially ridiculous considering their top headline today reads "Gonzales confirmed: war criminal to head US Justice Department" < http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m9478 > and links to a completely unreliable propaganda site. Another favorite news site used by Google News is antiwar.com. This is why blogs are becoming a popular source for news. The anti-American, liberal Google News will go the way of the Old Media. The gig’s up. They should know that most liberals don’t read the news. It scares them to risk being exposed to facts. Those of us who actually care to know the truth and stay current on world news will soon know better as this information spreads through the blogosphere. If you don’t have one, get yourself a news aggregator and get your news feeds from more reliable places. Most of the blogs on our blogroller have RSS feeds.

Send comments to Google News at: source-suggestions@google.com




http://64.233.183.104/searchq=cache:eq44blTuh1YJ:stuffyousho
uldknow.blogspot.com/+Gonzales+confirmed:+war+criminal+to+he ...

http://libertariangirl.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/02/is_goog
le_news_.html

http://www.jeffblogworthy.com/index.php?/archives/922-Gonzal
es-confirmed-war-criminal-to-head-US-Justice-Department.html ...

http://michellemalkin.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi?__mode=view&entry_id=
1431

http://www.rightnation.us/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t6795
2.html

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:HR_IzPQI6cJ:www.lifelik
epundits.com/archives/cat_site_news.php+Gonzales+confirmed:+ ...