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Kun én af de store søgetjenester duer til aktuel
journalistik
Af Helle Nissen Kruuse, hnk@djh.dk
Erfaringerne fra 11. september er ved at bundfælde sig
i de forskellige professioner på nettet. Journalister kan
se frem til at foretage en langt mere effektiv net-research i
fremtiden, hvis de redskaber, vi normalt bruger, søgetjenesterne,
tager ved lære af katastrofen.
Ubrugelige i timevis
Søgetjenesterne har behov for radikale ændringer.
Det afdækkes håndfast i en undersøgelse af
redaktør Danny Sullivan, Search
Engine Watch, som fulgte dem tæt under katastrofen.
Hans dom er klar. Tjenesterne håndterede situationen dårligt
med en enkelt undtagelse. Sullivan nøjes ikke med kritikken,
men giver en række gode råd til brugerne.
Samtidig med, at flere af de store, tunge nyhedsmediers netsteder
havde svært ved at håndtere den eksplosivt stigende
bruger-trafik 11. september, var journalisterne de første
mange timer også afskåret fra at trække på
søgemaskinerne. Næsten ingen tjenester er nemlig
gearet til helt aktuelle søgninger.
Fornemst af alle klarede AltaVista sig, og det kan forklares
med dens samarbejde med news crawler'en Moreover, hvis nyheds-overskrifter
omgående blev integreret i de almindelige søgelister.
Som kontrast skuffede den ellers suveræne Google. Også
den integrerer nyheds-overskrifterne, men selve nyheds-basen er
»far less comprehensive or reliable«, som undersøgelsen
udtrykker det. Andre søgemaskiner som fx MSN Search, AskJeeves,
Yahoo og Lycos var lige så utilfredsstillende.
Der gik adskillige timer, fra fire op til seks eller endnu
længere tid, før de søgetjenester overhovedet
var brugbare til aktuel, journalistisk research på nettet.
Sullivans søgetips
Undersøgelsen med dens detaljer og illustrationer af
netstederne, »Finding Disaster Coverage At Search Engines«,
ligger her,
og det samme gør Danny Sullivans gode råd om net-research.
Nogle citater i kort form:
- If you are seeking coverage of the terrorist attacks, you
are best directed to use special news search engines.
A link to a list of them is below, and they are listed roughly
in order of most usefulness.
- If you are seeking web sites related to the attacks, such
as special survivor or assistance sites, general purpose search
engines probably won't get you to them. This is because it takes
time for them to update their listings, anywhere from days to
weeks, depending on the search engine.
- Instead, depend on news sites to get you to disaster
web sites. They will all have articles and resource lists that
are constantly being updated. And, to find news sites and news
articles, use the news search engines.
- For finding web sites -- such as the Red Cross or CNN --
using 'regular' search engines is just fine. Most will
direct you to these, though you may find actually connecting
to your destination site may be difficult due to the high traffic
they are receiving. A link to a list of them is below.
Do keep in mind that how these sites are described -- and other
sites -- may seem odd or completely ignorant of the disaster.
This is again because it takes time for the search engines to
update their information and because it also generally depends
on the sites themselves to make updates.
Because of this, searches for things like 'world trade center'
will probably still reflect web sites that talk about tourism
or perhaps the bombing from 1993, rather than today's attacks.
That will change over the coming weeks, as the search engines
get updated.
News
Search Engines
Regular search engines are no good when you need breaking news.
Instead, news search engines offer far more current information.
The resources listed bring back headlines from a wide range of
sources and are updated many times throughout the day.
Major
Search Engines
These are major 'general purpose' search engines, many of which
were mentioned above. If you use them to seek news, look closely
at their home pages for guidance. Don't just head straight to
the search box. However, you should really use the news search
engines above, for the best coverage.
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