Sunday, October 5, 2014

Huffington Post vs. Google News (ATEC2321 Assignment 3)

Google News is a great aggregator, it has many sources, which are gathered by algorithms or digital coding and their speed in gathering the information is outrageous. One of the main topics of the week for example is "The Ebola Virus in the US". When doing a search on this topic using Google News you get about 13,200,000 results in 18 seconds, these results are phenomenal. Anyone could say that this is a fantastic news source due to the many results or even say that this is awesome for how fast it provides the information. However is it really that great to have all of this results in seconds? In some cases more is better and fast is great, but in this case I think it can be a dangerous thing. More in this case can mean room for error or wrong information. I rather have a one credible and reputable source like The Huffington Post due to the human input, even though it is based on blogs or personal point of views, the human interaction gives me a sense of credibility. Google News sources are pulled by algorithms where several of these sources can portray antitrust by showing erroneous information.

Let us just take a look at the first two links, the "Hill" and "Fox8" and see what these have to offer. I just started reading within the first two paragraphs and I already found some discrepancies between each of these two links. According to the "Hill"
Director Tom Frieden stated the following: "We have definitely seen an increase in the number since this patient was diagnosed… that is as it should be,"  and in the next paragraph he stated "We expect we will see more rumors, concerns, possibilities of cases. Now in the "Fox8" site
we find a different perspective or feeling as to what Director Tom Frieden stated that contradicts what the "Hill posted on their site: "we're confident we won't see a large number of cases from this,". When reading the "Hill" I get this weird feeling that this situation can get very ugly and out of control, when reading "Fox8" site it gives me a more under control situation. No wonder our society is reacting the way it is.

According to the "Huffington Post"
Director Tom Frieden said "that they've already gotten "well over" 100 inquiries on suspicious cases in recent months, with an uptick coming after the Dallas patient was diagnosed. Federal officials have said tests have been done on about 15 and all but one — Duncan — were false alarms." I have been listening to various news sources on TV and Radio and this version sounds more like what is being said on credible news sources.

Google has become a digital feudal lord without any boundaries according to the Germans, simply hungry for more and more information and results regardless of who is in front of them, this promotes a bad reputation http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wolfgang-mulke/germans-google-fear_b_5478199.html

The Huffington Post in the other hand promotes credibility, it is an American online news aggregator and blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, Andrew Breitbart, and Jonah Peretti, featuring columnists. The Huffington Post without a doubt a better source due to their human input and reputation.

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