To all who thought that the internet would usher in a new era overthrowing mainstream media and restoring the marketplace of ideas must continually contend with the simple fact that every marketplace has its merchants and its gatekeepers and nothing comes free. Google has become the Xerox of our time, the company become synonymous with product and finally a verb. But Google has accepted ads for Hamas, filled its Google News site with anti-semitic sites ranging from neo-nazi sites like the Vanguard Network to the left wing anti-semitic sites like Conspiracy Planet. In the latest news it rejected a Conservative ad precisely worded like a Liberal ad.
Where CBS, CNN and ABC at least held themselves to some standard of ethics and impartiality even if they constantly violated and got around it. Internet sites like Google have no standards, just advertising slogans. And what goes for Google, ultimately also goes for Yahoo and any internet site as well. The bias of a new media age is here and it will be much more difficult to address when dealing with entities that have no ethical standards, real or percieved, that often are not even based in the United States and beyond the control of the FCC or public opinion.
Where CBS, CNN and ABC at least held themselves to some standard of ethics and impartiality even if they constantly violated and got around it. Internet sites like Google have no standards, just advertising slogans. And what goes for Google, ultimately also goes for Yahoo and any internet site as well. The bias of a new media age is here and it will be much more difficult to address when dealing with entities that have no ethical standards, real or percieved, that often are not even based in the United States and beyond the control of the FCC or public opinion.
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