The United States Senate today rejected a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage (let’s pause to applaud the display of sanity) and the story is, of course, huge international news that immediately vaults into the top slot on Google News. In fact, it is practically no time before 1,647 articles about the vote are listed there.
So which of those 1,647 gets listed first? … And why?
The answer to the first question changes about as rapidly as you can hit your refresh button (as you’ll see shortly). The answer to the second question is a mystery that Google guards (if it knows) and online news professionals would pay serious money to unravel.
You try to make sense of this sequence:
The very first story listed first was from the Bangkok Post. Don’t ask me why.
Refresh: Up pops a story from Bloomberg.
Refresh: Leading the pack now is Metro Toronto, a publication we will soon learn has learned something about Google News — maybe.
Refresh: CBC News. Don’t even ask me what it is.
Refresh: Newsday of New York.
Refresh: Metro Toronto again.
Refresh: Newsday again.
Refresh: Metro Toronto for a third time.
Refresh: Bloomberg returns for a second turn.
Refresh: Metro Toronto scores a fourth appearance atop the pack and stays there through the next five clicks of my refresh button, a display of staying power that no other story came close to matching.
Refresh: Newsday comes up for the third time.
Refresh: Back to where we started, the Bangkok Post.
Refresh: The San Francisco Chronicle (finally, something here that makes sense).
Refresh: Our good buddies at Metro Toronto.
Refresh: Get this … an editorial from the Waco Tribune Herald headlined “The great distraction.” Right on the mark, this editorial, but what it’s doing leading this pack is beyond me.
Refresh: Newsday racks up its fourth turn on top.
Refresh: The San Francisco Chronicle again.
Refresh: I’d been wondering what happened to Metro Toronto. They’re back.
Refresh: A new player emerges: All Headline News, whatever the heck that might be.
Refresh: Metro (yawn) Toronto.
Refresh: Those Waco editorialists take a curtain call.
Refresh: What else? Metro Toronto.
I stopped … having learned exactly nothing about Google News, except maybe that I might want to place a call to Toronto.
