This is an important communication and you are invited to read it in full and then to circulate it widely among your contacts and mailing lists or news groups as well as to report it on other independent media sites.



April, 2006 (mathaba) -- Since 29th March, Mathaba News has been dropped, without notification nor explanation, from Google News http://news.google.com

We have sent them 4 Emails asking why and not received a reply. Other readers who have Emailed them, some of them representing organisations, have received at first denials that we were dropped, then confirmations giving the reason that we have both our own news but also aggregated news from other sources on our site. They said that if Mathaba can seperate aggregated content from our own content, then Google News will be able to index that content. It took our technicians less than 60 seconds to write two words of code to put that right, however, Google News have still not reinstated us and continue to ignore our correspondence concerning this issue.

If they did resume service, we would have sought some additional clarifications, i.e. we believe that the original content of our media partners can be included, and that we are free to add a link to their site at the end of such content, an example being Ogaden Online News. We believe the same would apply to our own diverse network members provided that their content is original. We have sought verification of that, however Google News avoids all communications from us. Therefore the pressing priority this past week has been to find out why we were dropped. The reason given as above mentioned was fixed, so it seems we are being lied to.

DON'T BE EVIL

Now we have to expect, given that we should have been reinstated this week, that this is a political decision and that Google News is no longer abiding by its stated mission not to be subject to political pressure, as well as the noble principles of the most honorable Google News founder himself, Krishna Bharat, who stated: "I want this to be a force for a democracy. I want us to be an honest broker, and I want newspapers featured on our site to get traffic from us.... People are at odds with understanding each other's point of view. I think we are helping the cause of democracy."

Krishna Bharat also stated: "You see a lot more diversity in the news coverage on our site than on others. I think the diversity is a mirror to the diversity of opinion there is worldwide. One of the things that makes us objective is we show all points of view. Even if you disagree with one, we give you both -- the majority and the minority point of view. The ones you don't agree with are education."

We could not agree more, and this is why we, perhaps now ironically, had encouraged our readers to access our articles via Google News, as much of our content was subscription only but we continued to offer that content free of charge via Google News. We have now dropped all requirements for subscription and all content is available from Mathaba.Net free of charge. We believed in Google News's stated mission.

HOLD GOOGLE ACCOUNTABLE

Now therefore it seems our strategy has to be different and we have to bring this out into the open.

You can draw your own conclusions as to why Google News has violated its corporate motto of "Don't Be Evil" by dropping, then denying, then claiming a reason which is no longer valid, and continuing to ignore communication with one of its major independent media and advertising partners, Mathaba News Network, a pro democracy, pro human rights, pro free speech rare pan African source of valuable information to counterbalance the repetitious selective coverage of US Associated Press et al which now dominates Google News.

Google News has been severely criticized by media and others for a number of reasons which show they're not all they're cracked up to be, however no matter their uncertain future and mounting competition and our chance to do better via new technologies such as the Wiki, we should still hold them to their stated aims, or force them to admit that these have now changed under political pressure.

So, looking at our coverage of news and analysis, what is Google News' problem with Mathaba?

Is it because of our coverage of the dictatorship of Sudan? Of Ethiopia and the human rights abuses there? Of our coverage of both sides of the news in Libya and of Muammar Qadhafi's views on events? Is it because of our recent extensive coverage of 9/11 questions that received huge amounts of US readers in the face of near-total silence in American media? Is it because of our latest report on the frontal assault on the freedom of the press in the USA? Is it because of our reporting, in the face again of US-media silence, on the plans of Jewish extremists to attack Iran in what we believe will be a never-ending disaster for the US as if their recent record in Iraq was not enough? Is it because of our launch earlier the same day, on 29th March of Working2gether.com Mutual Masses Media project to democratise media including our own and to document 9/11 information? Or is it all of these?

Is it because of our growing popularity and our independence? Is it because Mathaba News is now - even without Google News indexing - one of the most popular portals on the Internet? The past three months our growth has continued unabated, it can be seen at http://mathaba.net/wiki/Mathaba_Intro that Alexa ranks us in the top 0.01% of sites worldwide, with some 2 million hits a month. The immediate effect of Google News dropping us will be a drop in daily visitors, and a loss of advertising revenue as a result, until readers figure out that they need to come to our site directly, and until we make up for that in the coming days by Email campaigns drawing our constituent readers attention: alternative news, pro-freedom, pro-democracy, pro-rights and anti-war readers, writers and publishers.

SUGGESTED ACTION

We will make available a permanently archived record of the last results in Google News search before they dropped us, including valuable data we have obtained about what sources are actually included in Google News, and showing that their claim of 4,500 news sources is very misleading, if not an outright lie. Meanwhile, you can see at http://www.mathaba.net/data/100LAST.htm that we were dropped on 29th March, and you are invited to help in the following ways:

* We need this Email to be circulated widely but ideally to those who care about these issues, including organisations, news groups, mailing lists and individual contacts, and those are encouraged to do the same.

* If you visit Mathaba and like our service, then write to news-feedback@google.com suggesting they include our news again, and send us a BCC: copy of that email (and any replies) to google@mathaba.com

* We always need more volunteer editors and reporters. A good place to start is www.working2gether.com
and www.mathaba.net/ add

* Join our mailing lists mathabacast-subscribe@googlegroups.com (occasional), mcast-subscribe@googlegroups.com (daily), and see other FREE options for registering your support at http://www.mathaba.net/support

* If you join those lists, do circulate those Emails as well, post them on newsgroups and other relevant mailing lists.

Thank you for your support,

The Mathaba News Team http://www.mathaba.net/about