For bloggers, Google News is a great site, making it quick and easy to get the latest information from around the world on a particular subject or news event.
Google News also can frustrate the hell out of you, by revealing how many important topics are ignored by the world media.
Take, for instance, the current outbreak of dengue in Cuba.
Reports from the island suggests thousands have fallen ill and dozens have died.
But go to Google News and type in "dengue" into the search field, and you'll get pages and pages of links about dengue outbreaks in India, Phillippines, Vietnam and Ecuador. The only mention of Cuba in the first 10 pages of links — when I quit counting — was a column by an Indian journalist about how India needed to emulate Cuba's health care system.
Refine your search by typing in "dengue" and "Cuba" and the pickings aren't much better. In fact, the top link is to a story about the situation in India! The first links relevant to Cuba are to an Associated Press story dated Sept. 22.
Anyone who uses Google News to find information about Cuba recognizes the frustration. Usually, what you get back from a search for "Cuba," are mostly links to stories and other propaganda in the state-run media.
As evidenced by an uptick in visits this week to Uncommon Sense by people searching for information about "Cuba" "dengue" "2006" especially from Italy and elsewhere in Europe, there clearly is interest in the topic.
I am glad to be a source of information about the epidemic, if only because my reporting has been based largely on reports from Cuba's independent press. Those brave journalists deserve on the readership they can get.
But what also is clear the Cuban government, with the apparent acquiescence of a compliant world media, has successfully clamped down on widespread reporting of the epidemic.
A search at Google News confirms that.
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