"Labour MSP Margaret Curran has announced she will stand as a candidate for the Glasgow East by-election after the frontrunner dropped out."
What interests me is the sidebar entitled "FROM OTHER NEWS SITES", it includes five reports:
"The Scotsman Curran rides to the rescue of battered Brown - 9 hrs ago
Guardian Unlimited Glasgow East byelection chaos grows for Labour - 9 hrs ago
Daily Mail Brown rocked by Scottish revolt as four candidates turn down his personal pleas to stand in by-election - 9 hrs ago
Scotland on Sunday Online Curran rides to the rescue of battered Brown LABOUR'S battle to win the Glasgow East by-election and save the premiership of Gordon Brown looked increasingly desperate last night after party chiefs were forced to parachute in a new big-hitting c - 9 hrs ago
Telegraph Glasgow East by-election: Labour favourite George Ryan withdraws - 11 hrs ago"
No mention of the Mail's article as reported in The Mail and covered by me an hour or so ago. Why would that be the case? The BBC helpfully have a page entitled "BBC links to other news sites" that includes this passage:
"How do you choose which stories and which sites to link to?
The Newstracker system is automated. The BBC does not censor or change the results. But because there can potentially be scores of sites covering each story, the BBC does define some rules (algorithms) that help define which sites we link to at any point in time - and in what order these links appear.
In general, our rules tend to give greater weight to national and international sources over regional or local ones. We have a policy of only linking to English-language sites. The results are sorted in date order to provide the most recent stories at the top.
We hope you find this service useful. We are continuously trying to improve it, so if you have any comments or suggestions about Newstracker, please send them using the form below."
I like the way that the word "automated" is used in the first sentence to convey an impression of no bias. However the later line that "the BBC does define some rules (algorithms) that help define which sites we link to at any point in time - and in what order these links appear." gives enough control to the BBC over selection and ordering. I wonder what weight the algorithm gives to news stories from the Guardian, Observer, Independent (maybe 10) and opposed to the Telegraph (maybe 7) and the Mail (maybe 3).
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