In addition to its shoddy study accusing Google of “election interference,” the Media Research Center cranked out its usual dubious and biased attacks on Google as well this year. Gabriela Pariseau wrote in a Jan. 20 post:
On the day of the national March for Life in Washington D.C., anti-life Google pushed pro-choice news content to marchers.
MRC Free Speech America analyzed search results from Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo for the words “march for life” filtering specifically for new and using a “clean environment” the day of the March for Life. MRC also conducted an investigation at the March for Life rally, where 30 on-site marchers volunteered for the study and conducted the same Google search on their own phones. The findings were telling.
In both investigations, Google buried results from outlets like Fox News, Catholic News Agency and The Washington Examiner and instead elevated liberal news sources like The Hill, Axios, The Washington Post and The Associated Press. These sources vilified pro-life marchers as “abortion rights opponents” and “anti-abortion activists.” In contrast, Bing and DuckDuckGo instead elevated articles from a mix of different perspectives.
Note that Pariseau refused to hang a partisan identifier on Fox News, Catholic News Agency and The Washington Examiner, even though they have a clear right-wing bias that’s even more pronounced than the “liberal” bias she claims The Hill, Axios, The Washington Post and the AP have. Pariseau also whined that non-right-wing outlets didn’t use conservatively correct language:
A short write-up from The Hill topped the search results with the headline “Abortion-rights opponents rally at annual March for Life in DC: Watch live.” The article itself repeatedly referred to peaceful pro-life marchers as “anti-abortion” or “opponents of abortion.” The initial four results also included The Post and AP. Although each used headlines that were less inflammatory and presented some of pro-life perspective, both outlets also deployed pro-choice language to describe the pro-life event.
But “pro-life” protesters are indisputably, anti-abortion, and it’s not biased, or even “pro-choice language,” to identify them as such.
Joseph Vazquez touted a dubious outside study in a Feb. 23 post:
“Be Evil” should be Google’s new motto these days. The anti-free speech Big Tech giant has continued its sordid habit of suppressing right-leaning media sources while inundating users with left-leaning content.
A new analysis from media solutions company AllSides once again found that Google News is overwhelmingly elevating news media from “the left” while burying news media from “the right.” AllSides monitored Google News’ homepage over a two-week period in 2023 and uncovered that a whopping 63 percent of 494 articles came from sources “on the left.” By contrast, only a negligible six percent came from sources “on the right.” In addition, the group also analyzed stories generated through Google News’s search results based on specific prompts like “Economy” and “Abortion,” which likewise produced heavily skewed results favoring the left.
AllSides noted in its write-up of the study results that the 63 percent figure for left-leaning outlets reflected “a larger share [of the sources analyzed] than in 2022, when 61% of articles on Google News were from liberal outlets. In 2023, 6% of articles were from sources on the right; in 2022, just 3%.” As the U.S. braces for a contentious presidential election in November, it is clear that Google News is doing everything it can to manipulate the information flow to the left’s advantage.
AllSides CEO John Gable told MRC Free Speech America that “Google News’ bias may or may not be intentional, but it is pronounced.”
Vazauez is being dishonest by blandly labeling AllSides as a “media solutions company” — as we’ve documented when the MRC repeated a similar study from it, it’s a right-wing group with a skewed, MRC-friendly methodology that subjectively places most media outlets that aren’t explicitly right-wing as on “the left.” No evidence was offered that AllSides examined the content of any individual article for bias; it simply issued a blanket judgment based on its own subjective methodology. This, of course, plays into the MRC’s narrative, with Vazquez ranting at one point that “The top news source for Google News’ homepage was none other than leftist Bidenomics propaganda outlet CNN.” He too gave no evidence he analyzed the content of any CNN article listed by AllSides.
And, of course, only a rabid right-winger like Vazquez would think it’s “evil” to not be as far-right as he is.