Google News has been criticized for appearing biased at times, putting too much emphasis on small conservative fringe sites. Wired Magazine asked Krishna Bharat, chief scientist for Google News, to address these complaints:
“If you search for a particular news event, the fact that you pick certain words in your query is going to affect the results you get. But that’s true of search in general, and I don’t think there’s a consistent bias – no pattern has been established. The truth is, Google News doesn’t have a point of view. It’s a computer, and computers do not understand these topics the way humans do and can’t be systematically biased in any direction. The outcome is completely neutral to the topic.”
