OpEdNews » Beware of Yahoo "News" stories

Tuesday September second, Yahoo News included among its five most popular news stories, a piece from Real Clear Politics titled "Obama Offers a Beautifully Packaged Lie."- Clicking the link revealed that the piece was by one Robert Tracinski. It's a vicious (and very well-written) smear of Obama's acceptance speech, asserting that each and every one of his major points is an out-and-out flat lie.

Okay, the man's got a right to his opinion. The trouble is that Yahoo News lists his tirade not as opinion but as a news story (though once you've clicked through to it, you do find it labeled opinion). This is the kind of subtle swiftboating that is hardest to counteract. Labeling the piece news seems harmless enough, but how many people will click to it thinking it's a factual report?

A career writer and media maven, Jim Stinson is the author of four mystery novels and a college textbook, Video: Digital Communication and Production. He lives with his wife in Portland, OR.
Jim StinsonA career writer and media maven, Jim Stinson is the author of four mystery novels and a college textbook, Video: Digital Communication and Production. He lives with his wife in Portland, OR.

Another Portal war story

My wife uses a Google G-mail address to campaign for Jeff Merkeley, Oregon's Democratic candidate for senator. As you may know, Google makes its dough from G-mail through ads and unsolicited e-mails that "may be of interest" to the subscriber. In other words, they track your interests and sell this info.

She was astonished to find paid ads and stuff in her box from the most notorious, scurrilous swiftboating site on the web, attacking her candidate and all progressives.

Google says they can't be responsible for vetting the content that passes through. However, they can choose the customer's they sell services to. They rightly reject child pornography out of hand. It's not unreasonable that they should also decline to profit from paid inserts from scum telling out-and-out lies

Like Yahoo, they are almost impossible to reach with a protest.

by Jim Stinson (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 75 comments) on Wednesday, September 3, 2008 at 4:20:37 PM