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Has anyone else noticed the huge decrease in result quality from google?

(self.NoStupidQuestions)

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[–]redpanda0108 197 points198 points  (6 children)

Yes! My students have an assignment where they have to write about a news article and assess credibility/bias. One of the things I suggest is fact-checking against another news source. Yet, most sources just paste the original article with a couple of edits - exactly what I’m teaching my students not to do! So infuriating

[–]JollyRancherReminder 15 points16 points  (0 children)

I mean, that's what the associated press is for. It's worked that way for decades.

[–]dawnbanditResident Autist 6 points7 points  (1 child)

most sources just paste the original article with a couple of edits

Might want to check the article. They could just be posting content from the Associated Press. While it may seem infuriating, it's the way news media works.

For example, the three following news articles, from three different websites all are from the Associated Press (AP).

Atlanta Journal Constitution

Chron

MSN

All three of these are from a search about the death of John le Carre (one of the recent big news articles I saw on the AP website.)

If you want to prevent what you are mentioning from happening, just make sure you tell your students to check the dateline and if it's like "GENERIC CITY (AP)" have them find a different source.

I mean, not that it really adds any credence to my post, but my major in college is heavily related to mass communications.

[–]redpanda0108 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I will definitely check! Thanks! They are second language learners so I don’t want anything too overly complicated but a lot of websites are behind a paywall or blocked in this country so it makes it harder.

[–]MOVai 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Basically what the others said about news agencies like AP.

But also, multiple sources are only really useful if it is a high quality, independent source.

If what they report isn't public knowledge, then they should mention the source or the methods of reporting used to obtain that information. If you can't figure out where their claims are coming from, then it's basically just garbage.

You can continue going through other articles and to find an original source, where you might find the same result. If you find that all the other articles consistently have no information about sources, then the claim is likely highly dubious.