Google News Site Mismatching Stories With Images!

Google engineers are hard at work trying to fix a major embarrassment caused over their News Site where mismatched images and reports appeared, reports CNN Money. The saddest thing was that, it wasn't one incident but three cases of mismatched images & stories that surfaced.

• "Searches conducted on Google News Friday occasionally returned photos from Reuters Group PLC (RTRSY) that didn't match the stories they were listed next to, such as a shot of bunches of vegetables that appeared alongside a story about a Japanese merger firm.
• Another story listed on Google News top business stories had a Reuters photo of a guitarist next to a Wall Street Journal story about Sprint Nextel (S) considering changes to a wireless Internet service plan.
• Newsweek magazine posted a story on-line late Thursday pointing out that last week Google News displayed photos of two monkeys next to stories about the expected departure of Dick Parsons as chief executive of Time Warner Inc. (TWX). Parsons is one of the most prominent black executives in the country, and Newsweek pointed out that "few images of racism" are as offensive to blacks as monkeys".

"Google's news pages are automated and use computer coding, or algorithms, to select and display stories. Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker said its algorithms appeared to be mismatching some material, but the problem appeared to be mainly with photos from Reuters."

About the DIck Parsons issue, Stricker called the mismatches "a really unfortunate mistake, and we're working very hard to fix it." Spokesmen from Time Warner have not commented yet.

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