Since last summer Google is experimenting with an initiative that makes many journalists shiver. The articles that appear when consulting Google News will be associated with a photo of the author and the biographical and personal data found on Google Plus, the social network launched last June. Nothing wrong, apparently. Currently, Google News it is full of headlines, articles and photos produced by journalists and, if the experiment gives the desired positive results, in a few months it will also be accompanied by information regarding the authors, increasing transparency. After all, it is now a consolidated habit on the Web to know everything about the people with whom you come into contact: it is no longer enough to have the product available, you also need to have detailed manufacturer information.
But some commentators in the United States have observed that the initiative carries the risk of fundamentally changing the way users access Google News. at author information in fact, the comments of his readers will be combined and it will be possible to know the number of people who have let him enter theirs circle of appreciation. One will be born approval rating, every journalist's nightmare, which will end up directing users towards the most popular authors, marginalizing the others in the logic of any search engine.
The well-established mechanisms of the Web push in this direction, but i dangers to journalism they are not few. Being the most widely read doesn't always mean producing the best information: in England tabloids sell millions of copies, quality newspapers stop at a few hundred thousand precisely because they don't seek easy applause. We also need to tell people the things that people don't want to hear, giving up the populism that increases approval ratings and circulations to the detriment of the role that journalism should have in every democratic society.
If the Web continues to compile approval rankings to attract advertising on the most visited blogs, it will risk following the fate of television, whose programs have deteriorated due to the obsession with Auditel.
