Google enhances search results about political candidates with reports from the establishment media, which are allied with the Harris campaign and often provide biased coverage against the Trump campaign, according to a study performed by MRC Free Speech America researchers.
The finding is significant because undecided voters who seek specific policy solutions or straight commentary on candidates will have to sift through many links before they discover organic results of their intended searches, the study found.
For example, MRC Free Speech America conducted a study on two searches: “donald trump presidential race 2024” and “kamala harris presidential race 2024.” In both searches, the study found that Democrat-allied media outlets, such as the New York Times and CNN, populated the top of the search results.
In the past, Google buried the campaign websites of Republican candidates. Now the search giant very clearly pads its search results about political candidates with leftist legacy news articles, many of which are hostile to Republicans and either neutral or favorable toward Democrats. Readers will have to sift through the biased news before they even see the organic results of their searches, let alone a candidate’s website.
MRC Free Speech America researchers conducted searches on Sept. 6 for “donald trump presidential race 2024” and “kamala harris presidential race 2024” to determine where Google Search would position each candidate’s presidential campaign website. In both searches, news from leftist-biased legacy outlets like CNN and The New York Times populated the top of the search results.
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign website appeared sixth in search results for “donald trump presidential race 2024.” But before reaching Trump’s website, readers would see options to click on seven articles from left-wing sources. The New York Times, Politico and The Washington Post were listed under the “Top Stories” panel.
Google is not the only company that appears to skew political coverage. Television networks provided Harris with 84 percent “positive coverage” since she joined the race, a Media Research Center study found in August, while they produced 89 percent negative coverage of former President Donald Trump.
Leading up to the Trump/Harris debate, the ABC News program World News Tonight gave an overall positive spin on Harris, versus its overall negative reporting of Trump, the Media Research Center (MRC) found.
After the debate, Democrat allies in the establishment media gave ABC News debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis rave reviews for their biased performance. “I will say it ABC moderators have exceeded expectations,” said Jennifer Rubin, a “pro-democracy” opinion writer at the Washington Post.
The media’s coverage does not escape the notice of voters. Six out of ten Americans say the establishment media are to blame for misinformation, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found in 2023. About three out of four Americans said the media are responsible for the polarization, and just under half of those sampled have little to no trust in the media’s accuracy or fairness in reporting.
Read about MRC’s investigation of Google’s bias for the Joe Biden campaign here.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.