Echoing the sentiments of news consumers across the country, Dave Winer,
weblog pioneer, writes, "can we once and for all get rid of the notion that
professional journalists are objective?"
After all, Winer notes, many websites "don't actually have editorial
content that could be objective or not."
But when webloggers want to find information on the Internet, do they
reach for an openly subjective search engine like Yahoo, where search
results can be bought? No, they reach for Google, and get upset when they
think Google is biased.
In fact, objectivity is a stated goal of Google. As one of the founders
told
NPR's Terry Gross:
"Part of our job is to give you the absolute best information, the most
objective and honest information that we know how, and we work very
very hard to do that."
Objectivity may be impossible as an achievable ideal, but it is essential
as a goal.
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