The Media Research Center has been using faulty research and rigged search terms to smear Google’s search results as “biased” for years now — and it followed that up with slightly different spin on the smear campaign in order to serve up a partisan defense of Donald Trump’s cabinet picks. Tom Olohan and Gabriela Pariseau set the tone for this campaign in a Nov. 21 post:
After failing to stop the return of former President Donald Trump to the White House, Google appears to have settled for going after his cabinet-level nominees.
On Nov. 19, MRC researchers searched Google for names of each of Trump’s cabinet nominations, and additionally the FCC chairman, and compared the news results against the AllSides media list, which classifies publications based on their “right” or “left” bias. MRC researchers found that in 8 out of 13 queries, Google provided zero right-leaning media sources on the first page of results. Worse still, even when Google did display news outlet articles in search results for the nominees’ names, it showed over 11 times more left-leaning media articles than right-leaning in its general search.
Google featured articles from leftist outlets including Teen Vogue, The Daily Beast, The Atlantic, CNN, The Hill, The New York Times and The Washington Post among many others. Indeed, out of the 100 news articles that Google displayed, the search engine produced a shabby eight articles from just three right leaning news outlets, Fox News, New York Post and Catholic News Agency.
In follow-up queries, researchers examined the results of searching the same names using Google’s news tab. These searches produced similarly biased results. Searches for FCC Chairman nominee “Brendan Carr” and Trump’s other first fourteen cabinet-level appointments were filled with leftist and legacy media sources that far outnumbered any right-of-center results that appeared on the front page. Out of 130 news results that appeared on the first page of a Google news tab search, only 16 were from U.S.-based right-leaning sources.
The first page of the Google news tab search not only displayed articles from leftist outlets, but it also flooded the results with vicious or negative headlines and attacks about the potential cabinet secretaries.
Note their biased labeling — the pejorative “leftist” vs. the more neutral “right-leaning” and “right-of-center.” Olohan and Pariseau went on to grumble:
Google search results for Trump’s nominee to run the Department of Justice, former Congressman Matt Gaetz, and Trump’s choice for Secretary of the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, were similarly littered with media outlets whose headlines skewed heavily against the nominees. Google also featured a Daily Beast article labeling Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), potentially the next Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, a “puppy killer” in its headline.
Olohan and Pariseau didn’t dispute the accuracy of any of the articles — indeed, Noem bragged about killing a puppy in her memoir last year (a story the MRC largely ignored). They continued to whine:
This study follows a breathtaking campaign of election interference by Google exposed by the Media Research Center. A Sept. 6 MRC Free Speech America study showed that Google required users to wade through a deluge of leftist news articles before getting to Trump’s campaign website.
This study was followed by studies on Oct. 1, Oct. 9, Oct. 15, Oct. 22, Oct. 30 and Election Day itself that demonstrated that Google was burying right-of-center search results. The Trump prompt for Oct. 9 produced the most egregious results. The Oct. 9 study found that Google buried the first U.S.-based right-of-center result—a Fox News video—for the Trump prompt on page 23. Nowhere on any of the 26 pages of results did a U.S.-based right-of-center news article appear.
We’ve documented how the MRC tried to invent “bias” at Google in those so-called studies; further, the AllSides labeling methodology relied on by the MRC is highly dubious and subjective. And the MRC never examined the alleged bias of any individual article in those search results — it’s just lazily assuming that purported bias through the outlet they appear at.
Olohan served up another bogus allegation of “search manipulation” in a Dec. 6 post:
MRC Free Speech America has caught Google rigging search results for President-elect Donald Trump’s most prominent nominees before, and the search engine is at it yet again.
On Nov. 26 and Dec. 3, the MRC found an absurd ratio in favor of leftist and legacy media articles versus articles considered “right” or “lean right” by media ratings firm AllSides. On both dates, MRC researchers searched Google news tab and general search for the names of a number of top Trump nominations, and compared the news articles in the search results against the AllSides media bias list. For the Nov. 26 general search, there were 20 times more left-wing articles. On Dec. 3, U.S.-based “right” or “lean right” articles were also egregiously outnumbered as there were 18 times more leftist articles.
Despite making so little space for “right” or “lean right” articles, Google provided users with propaganda from Inside Climate News for both the Nov. 26 and Dec. 3 general search results. The Dec. 3 results included yet another climate change cult publication, The Daily Climate. Furthermore, Google’s Dec. 3 general search results did feature tiny anti-Israel publications such as the ScheerPost and MintPress News at the top of potential Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s results. Mintpress News called him the “most dangerous man alive,” while ScheerPost viciously attacked Rubio for being pro-Israel.
[…]Eleven of the 20 nominees were subjected to vicious headlines on Nov. 26, to say nothing of the content awaiting users who click on any of the above publications. For example, Google once again gave pride of placement to a vicious attack on Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFK Jr.). After proudly displaying an article attacking RFK Jr. and his wife that urged her to divorce him last month, Google kicked off its “Top Stories” section in a search for RFK Jr. with an outrageous article by The Daily Beast. The wildly misleading headline suggested that the potential HHS Secretary endorses the use of heroin.
The Dec. 3 news tab search results were also littered with personal attacks in searches for Kennedy and at least 9 other Trump nominees. Google prominently featured hit pieces, including two by leftist rags Rolling Stone and MSNBC with headlines targeting the integrity of Kash Patel, Trump’s pick for FBI Director, and other nominees. And while Rolling Stone accused Patel of “MAGA Money Grabs,” MSNBC included Patel in an article headlined “Several Trump personnel picks have backgrounds in snake oil sales.”
Again, Olohan did not dispute the accuracy of any claim made in those “personal attacks,” which undercuts its purported outrage. And despite his attack on the Daily Beast headline about Kennedy, he is quoted in the article as effectively doing that: “I was at the bottom of my class. I started doing heroin and I went to the top of my class. Suddenly, I could sit still and I could read.”
Olohan was back with another biased attack in a Dec. 12 post:
Google stacked search results for Trump nominees with legacy and leftist media sources for the fourth straight week. In fact, the search giant went above and beyond to push outlets that encourage hatred of several of President-elect Donald Trump’s choices.
The Media Research Center discovered Tuesday that Google had once again rigged its general search and news tab results filling them with media sources hostile to Trump and the people he has nominated to serve in his administration. Leftist and legacy media articles greatly outnumbered articles from news outlets considered “right” or “lean right” by media ratings firm AllSides. After comparing the search results to the AllSides media bias list, MRC researchers found eight times more left-leaning articles in the general search results than U.S.-based “lean right” or “right” articles. Google similarly supplied nearly six times as many left-leaning articles for its news tab search.
Google provided scarcely any articles categorized as “lean right” or “right” by AllSides to go along with these vicious attacks and this stacked deck of leftist and legacy media.
He was particularly bothered that one particular nominee was remarked upon:
Google truly distinguished itself by pushing outlets that stoke hatred against nominees like Kash Patel, Trump’s FBI director nominee. Google filled Patel’s general search results with attacks and elevated a fearmongering Slate article with the headline “We’ve Seen Kash Patel’s Enemies List. It’s Terrifying” at the top of the page. Other articles by leftist outlets such as NPR, CNN, The Guardian, The Daily Mail and NBC News spread fear about Patel.
In the news tab search result for “Kash Patel,” Google included the Slate article second from the top, while also elevating a Mother Jones article calling Patel a “useful idiot for Putin,” a CNN article implying Patel was paranoid and an NPR article accusing him of feeding “conspiracy theories” to children.
Yet again, Olohan failed to dispute the accuracy of any article he cited. Instead, he lashed out at a different outlet despised by the MRC’s Trump Regime Media:
Yes, the NeverTrump Bulwark was repeatedly featured by Google. Despite only providing 31 “lean right” or “right articles” in its news tab search, Google still twice found space for this publication that repeatedly pushed people to support the election of the most radical Democratic nominee in history and is filled with rabidly anti-Trump writers who embrace leftist positions on transgenderism, abortion, immigration, the fight against DEI and other issues.
Needless to say, Olohan couldn’t be bothered to back up his assertion that Kamala Harris was “the most radical Democratic nominee in history,” or that failure to support Trump makes the Bulwark “leftist.”