Conversely, to me, the reasoning in the piece is extremely flaky. A few examples below:
1) The biggest and most obvious one is that the Times has a large amount of oversight already in terms of other papers as well as law. Google has nothing like that, search engines just don't work the same way. You don't get search results compared all the time. That does happen to reporting.
2) People tend to consume a variety of reporting mediums, but only one search engine. For example I read the Independent newspaper, the BBC or Guardian websites, on TV watch Question Time, This week (both BBC again admittedly) and Channel 4 news. And on the radio in the morning, news reports. I'm probably a bit more of an outlier, but I would guess many people are exposed to multiple suppliers of news without even realizing it.
And for search I use... um, Google.
3) The numbers are totally incomparable. How many people in the world rely on the Times' as their exclusive news provider in the world? 1% would be a gross over estimation. And Google for search? 66%.
4) Transparency. There is nothing transparent about Google's algorithm, while everything is supposed to be transparent at a paper. A journalist not declaring a vested interest is abnormal, they will even duck out of stories in which the have such an interest. Again, it's about oversight. Remember that hoo-haa a year ago about the massive argument those tech bloggers had on screen about free gear influencing their reports? That would never happen to a search engine.
There are many comparable intellectual bloopers in the satire just like this.
I've been of the opinion that Google needs some oversight for quite a while, they are getting scarily powerful. While I dislike government interference, the web is too important to leave to a company.
At the moment Google is fairly good, but there's no denying it's been favouring its own services at the expense of others.
We have nothing to gain in trusting it to regulate itself and everything to lose.
Good post but #2 is probably far from the average. A lot of people don't read/watch the news anymore and if they do, they usually watch it on one channel at night. I find it rare for people to do something as simple as use google news or other aggregators. And even if you were to read multiple papers, the Times does get reprinted a lot, so does Reuters and AP, Knight Rider stories etc. The newspaper industry is about as consolidated as the search business. There not that many conglomerates in news and independent newspapers are rare.
1) The biggest and most obvious one is that the Times has a large amount of oversight already in terms of other papers as well as law. Google has nothing like that, search engines just don't work the same way. You don't get search results compared all the time. That does happen to reporting.
2) People tend to consume a variety of reporting mediums, but only one search engine. For example I read the Independent newspaper, the BBC or Guardian websites, on TV watch Question Time, This week (both BBC again admittedly) and Channel 4 news. And on the radio in the morning, news reports. I'm probably a bit more of an outlier, but I would guess many people are exposed to multiple suppliers of news without even realizing it.
And for search I use... um, Google.
3) The numbers are totally incomparable. How many people in the world rely on the Times' as their exclusive news provider in the world? 1% would be a gross over estimation. And Google for search? 66%.
4) Transparency. There is nothing transparent about Google's algorithm, while everything is supposed to be transparent at a paper. A journalist not declaring a vested interest is abnormal, they will even duck out of stories in which the have such an interest. Again, it's about oversight. Remember that hoo-haa a year ago about the massive argument those tech bloggers had on screen about free gear influencing their reports? That would never happen to a search engine.
There are many comparable intellectual bloopers in the satire just like this.
I've been of the opinion that Google needs some oversight for quite a while, they are getting scarily powerful. While I dislike government interference, the web is too important to leave to a company.
At the moment Google is fairly good, but there's no denying it's been favouring its own services at the expense of others.
We have nothing to gain in trusting it to regulate itself and everything to lose.