News selections should have all news not limited to MSM propaganda

glossviper

Kagi in its news search is not much better than Google and worse than Bing; You create a finite limit based on MSM and 'acceptable' stories; Allow researchers to see all the stories from all sources, you know if we are paying for your site, we are smart enough to choose what we need to read to make accurate decissions; A good example would be to have substack, twitter and non MSM venues listed with your search list;
Again, we are paying for access to the full picture; Change or become irrelevant to researchers;

Vlad

glossviper Have you tried creating a personal news lens with sites you would prefer to see in your news feed?

carl

One interesting approach would be to have a "source search" for news that would prioritise the sources of news reports, no matter where that source is found. In most cases the sources would be government decisions, press conferences or interviews, in other cases it would be scoops and investigations. I suspect this approach would have to be crowd-sourced.

To take something that is in the news right now: "Putin interview". The results on Kagi for that term is much below acceptable quality. I'd expect the interview itself to be the first result, not MSM denouncements and old interviews from 3 years ago. The correct link is half way down the results, at least it's actually there. Switching to the "News" tab yields only American/British media denouncements. Of no value to nobody. Where's the interview? How about "Podcasts" tab? That tab is also full of useless results, with right wing and left wing pundits analysing it. But where's the interview itself?

Finally, the "Videos" tab has the correct result as the third video. So it was the best news search filter in this case.

Vlad

carl 'putin interview' is easilly found in kagi's search results. when you switch to 'news' tab you switch context to 'news about putin interview' and yes most news about the event are dominated by a small number of news organizations. it is a hard problem to solve.

But I understand Kagi leadership. Open minded customers will not be too much bothered by the left-wing/MSM domination in the news section, while close minded customers would be very bothered by any right-wing or non-MSM domains in the news section.

This is not what we are thinking about at all, and please do not assume things on our behalf.

Dustin

I think it would be a mistake to change the default News Lens to include non-news blogging/microblogging sources but I agree that there should probably be a toggle or a secondary Lens which can also include editorializing and other research sources such as that. Just as there is a Research Lens for academic sources.

chris_20017

When I click on „News“ on a site like Kagi, Bing or Google, I expect results from news organisations, not primary sources or results from social media trying to gain control over the interpretation of news.

carl

chris_20017

A lot of the time, the primary source for a story is legacy news organisations.

In my opinion it would be beneficial to weigh results so that for example a Reuters scoop on a story would be the first result, not a MSNBC rewrite on the scoop "as reported by Reuters".

To extrapolate a little on the OP. Who benefits from Kagi news search being exclusively MSM links? Somebody who wants her news only from mainstream media doesn't go searching for news, she turns on the evening news on that channel and listens to what they say, or opens their web page where she is already a subscriber. And on the flip side, somebody who doesn't want the mainstream media perspective is not going to find very much of use in Kagi's news search.

But I understand Kagi leadership. Open minded customers will not be too much bothered by the left-wing/MSM domination in the news section, while close minded customers would be very bothered by any right-wing or non-MSM domains in the news section.

There's still much improvement to be made. And - related to another thread here - why are results in English given extremely high priority on news search with the region set to "International"? There is nothing in my setup or my search terms that indicates in any way whatsoever that I understand English, so why are these results forced everywhere?

chris_20017

But I understand Kagi leadership. Open minded customers will not be too much bothered by the left-wing/MSM domination in the news section, while close minded customers would be very bothered by any right-wing or non-MSM domains in the news section.

These open minded customers (“MSM propaganda”, “MSM denouncements”, “Kagi news search being exclusively MSM links”, “left-wing/MSM domination”, “close minded customers would be very bothered by any right-wing or non-MSM domains”) seem to be less interested in a broader perspective but a perspective that shifts the results in the direction of their political preferences.

carl

chris_20017

I invite you to try out some search terms on Kagi news. Most of the topics currently in the news netted MSM and yes - left wing - denouncements presented as news articles. The right wing news does much the same thing, but in this case they are not very present on Kagi news.

Try "Putin interview" for example. Are those articles presented actual news or are they denouncements?

Try "Tucker Carlsson" next. Outright denouncements, articles literally calling him an idiot, cartoons where he stands among graves, etc. Every result was a denouncement of the person.

Try "Joe Biden" next. No article criticising him, certainly no denouncement. An article criticising his brother was there. But I see several articles celebrating Joe Biden, maybe he is a glorious leader.

Try "Donald Trump". Second article: "Donald Trump is mentally impaired". Some news about his sneakers and some more denouncements.

Try "Putin" as a search term. Half of the articles are about American Trump/Biden elections, which clearly shows the heavy leaning to American MSM media and their navel-gazing election focused reporting. Maybe the rest of the world would like to read news about the war and if it will ever end?

Note that I didn't write "MSM propaganda". I didn't start the thread either. If you search for news on Kagi, there will be many articles denouncing opposing views as "propaganda" right in the headline.

A mix of sources and perspectives is best for finding the truth and keeping an open mind. I don't want to limit myself only to news raving about "the bandit in the white house" or "our glorious leader in the white house". If I wanted that, I'd watch cable TV and the limited right wing and left wing perspectives there.

Edit: Just to add, of course it's Kagi's right to be left leaning in how they select news sources, or primarily focus on an American perspective, or weigh stuff however they see fit. If it's intentional, they don't even have to be explicit about it. Users learn quickly.

carl

Vlad I think most people searching for "putin interview" are interested in the actual interview and not news about the interview (if the articles can be called news and not op-eds). Or if they don't want the whole interview, probably they want to know what important things were said.

Likewise, when I search for "CNN" and press the News tab, I want CNN.com to be the first result, and preferably not somebody denouncing CNN. Currently Kagi gets that right, although the results for the term are a bit meagre.

Vlad This is not what we are thinking about at all, and please do not assume things on our behalf.

I apologise, I should have phrased that better. I actually do not believe that you intentionally have designed the news tab to lean left and lean American. What I mean is that I understand why it's maybe not an urgent priority to alter the news algorithm. If it was right-leaning or non-US leaning I believe there would have been a bigger fuzz here on the feedback forum, but that's just my speculation.

Vlad

carl

I think most people searching for "putin interview" are interested in the actual interview and not news about the interview

That is not how News tab works. When you switch to it you are searching for 'news about [topic]'. If you want to search for the actual topic, ie. 'putin interview' you do that in web search tab, where it surfaces in top 3 hits.

I actually do not believe that you intentionally have designed the news tab to lean left and lean American.

Kagi news does not lean any 'side' (whatever that means) by design and does not lean American. If you switch to a different region we will do our best to surface news from that region. The default (international) means news in English (not American) because English is defacto the language of international communication.

carl

Vlad In this context I'm referring to the left/right political spectrum when writing about leaning. The world is of course not left or right, but most news outlets are. With leaning American I mean that internal US issues - such as their elections - are prioritised high on international search for international terms. For example searching for "sports" nets mostly US sports news.

Anyway, I hate to bump this thread because it doesn't interest me much. Just wanted to explain.

I think my idea of a "source search" is still interesting and could be useful for everybody researching news stories, no matter what they think of the results themselves. Every piece of news has a source. The job of the journalists is to boil it down and present it in a comprehensible way to their audience. With access to the source you get closer to the whole truth. Maybe your AIs could analyse news articles, see if they refer to any source, find that source and link to it somewhere. Maybe even summarise the source document? Of course many time the source will be an hours-long parliamentary debate, but other times it is a short press release.