I’m going to continue my analysis, but I’ll do it a week at a time and be a little more organized each day, focusing on the following:
- I’ll provide the same screenshot of Google News, which I’ll get from an incognito browser window to ensure I’m not seeing personalized results.
- I’ll continue to color code in red and green.
- Any story with a positive headline for each respective candidate will be circled in green.
- Any story with a negative headline for each respective candidate will be circled in red.
- A neutral headline will not be circled.
- What were the conversations happening among conservative users on X for that day.
- My brief commentary with observations.
Let’s try this for a few days and see if you find it useful
Wednesday August 7, 2024
Conversations going on at X: Users on X are exploring Tim Walz’s record, including questions about his military service, questions about his seemingly obsequious views towards China, and his record as a governor during COVID. There was also excitement about Trump’s upcoming interview with Elon Musk. None of these are being discussed in the mainstream media.
Commentary: All of these are legitimate questions to ask about Walz, but NONE of these questions are being addressed on Google News. Instead, Google continues to feature stories that continue to praise Harris in fawning language…Axios is already talking about her Cabinet (what Scott Adams refers to as “thinking past the sale”, while The Hill discusses how South Asians are supposedly supporting her in waves (likely to counteract the narrative that blacks and Hispanics are supporting Trump in record numbers). There are the rare cases of negative stories about Harris, but those are very much in the minority.
In the meantime, coverage of Trump continues to be not of things Trump is doing himself (with the rare exception of the New York Times covering Trump’s plan of removing taxes on Social Security payments). Media outlets covered an interview with Biden saying that he was not confident of a peaceful transition of power (which plants the image of January 6, 2021 in people’s minds, even as the events of July 13, 2024 have already been erased).
There’s also wall-to-wall coverage of the Arizona court case—notice carefully how the headline doesn’t read “prosecutors do not want to indict Trump” but rather “Grand Jury wants to indict Trump” based on a court filing that wasn’t particular newsworthy other than for the media to pick out additional points to attack Trump with.
There’s wall-to-wall coverage of Trump praising Tim Walz as a governor, completely missing the point that Trump praises everyone—including Putin and Kim—when he’s looking to negotiate with them. It’s a deliberate misreading of Trump’s comments meant to defend Walz against attacks from Trump’s team and followers.
And of course, the mainstream media continues to slip in insults of Trump, that he’s “teetering”.
Thursday August 8, 2024
Conversations going on at X: Users on X are discussing a speech by Kamala Harris where she said that “on day 1 of her Presidency she will bring down prices” which is leading them to ask: as a member of the Biden Administration why doesn’t she do that now? There’s also a lot of chatter about Great Britain arresting its citizens for social media posts, an issue that would be fascinating to hear both candidates’ takes on. People on X are sharing video clips of Trump’s press conference in which he makes a reporter look foolish for asking why he hasn’t done any campaign appearance—when the very press conference she is a part of is a campaign appearance. They shared multiple video clips of the news conference, declaring it a positive for Trump.
Commentary: All coverage of Trump’s press conference is negative—not that instead of addressing the substance of the issues he discussed, they simply characterize it as “trying to wrestle back attention” and “trainwreck”. The only part of the press conference they spend time with is “debunking” a throwaway story that Trump told about a harrowing helicopter ride with Willie Brown which was intended to disarm them but ended up providing them more fodder to try to discredit anything he says. Of course, there continue to be the highly selective citations of polls, with most media outlets focusing on polls that show Harris leading—as if they are willing Harris to continue to climb (which, in fact, they are when the only news they report about Harris is how she’s supposedly surging in the polls).
On the Harris side there’s the rare glimpse of real journalism as the New York Times questions why Harris isn’t giving any interviews, but that’s overshadowed by coverage of Trump’s “meandering” press conference.
Note one other subtle thing. While AP, the New York Times and CNN accurately state that ‘Trump and Harris agree” to a presidential debate, note how The Washington Post and ABC News carefully craft their headlines to read “Trump agrees to debate with Harris”. Do you see it? Trump is the one who proposed the dates and sent them to Harris to agree to, but the subtle spin is that Harris is in control and Trump is the one kowtowing to her. It’s subtle, but over a six month period these little cuts add up.
Once again, notice how the complete absence of conservative and independent media—except for the token right-leaning Fox News and occasionally the New York Post—paints a very biased picture of Harris and Trump on a news service (Google News) that people assume is objective and unbiased.
Friday August 9, 2024
Commentary: I noticed that Google News has changed its layout. Google regularly runs AB testing, so this just might be me seeing it. But they’ve gone back to a traditional 10-pack of results instead of the layout which organizes stories by topics. I actually prefer this format and hope they keep it.
The way that Google chooses topics is a good example of how Google can claim plausible deniability at how “biased” they are. They will say that the topics are chosen based on “The Algorithm”. But when their inputs are limited to outlets like The Atlantic, CNN, and The New York Times, of course The Algorithm will push stories that the editors of these outlets want to drive the news cycle. So good riddance.
Unfortunately, the positive coverage for Harris and the negative coverage for Trump continue unabated. As expected, The New Republic has turned a single post by Donald Trump into an entire story of how he has “unleashed his MAGA Army” on Joe Rogan. And despite a Rasmussen poll today that shows Trump 5 points in the lead, Google News continues to show a story from The Guardian of Harris “building a lead” based on a poll that’s days old. Stories on Harris continue to make her look “presidential” (despite her STILL not having a news conference or major policy speech since getting the nomination), while stories on Trump continue to paint him as unhinged and “lashing out”—ignoring everything he said of substance in his most recent news conference and focusing on nonsense such as whether he was nearly in a helicopter accident with Willie Brown. Granted, Trump and his followers are taking the bait and should be more aware of how the media manipulates them.
Another new feature that Google seems to be testing is a badge that says “LIVE” for breaking news. The stories for both the Harris and Trump searches talk about Harris’s rally in Arizona that’s happening tonight, but do not talk about Trump’s rally in Montana.
Saturday August 10, 2024
I’m going to be busy for the next few days, so I’ll hold off on the commentary and let these screenshots speak for themselves.
