It cannot be a coincidence that the rise of the far-right and neo-authoritarianism in half the world and the radical change in the communication landscape, a result of the empire of the algorithm. And yet, there are still those who consider that the internet giants have a progressive political tendency. Newsbusters is a tired MAGA lobby that tries to adopt the forms of a verification service. The latest of its reports is a mess in which it is claimed that, of nearly 200 analyzed news items collected by the Google News service, 183 are from media outlets they consider left-wing, but only six belong to conservative media. In fact, only Fox News manages to have its material selected. In the case of progressive brands, they point to such diverse media outlets as The Guardian, CNN, Associated Press, Al-Jazeera, and the BBC. Grouping them all together is a blatant audacity, but what is embarrassing is that they do not see that the big difference between Fox News, and let's say the BBC, is not ideology, but professional practice. While the British corporation, with all its biases and imperfections, still retains prestige and its professionals mostly observe the basic principles of factual journalism, Trump's favorite channel has long since bent any principle of reality to its political and ideological agenda. Google News is not choosing according to ideology –little more amoral than the algorithm–, but based on a series of criteria, among which is prestige, alas.The principle is clear: under the pretext that traditional media have biases –and yes, they do–, they defend proposals that don't even pass the slightest cotton wool test. In fact, one of the main problems of our era is, precisely, to champion honest journalism (however imperfect it may be) that has left home with a knife in hell in its jacket.
