Probably not strange since they probably have very low PageRank, visits, etc.

On the other hand, the top Google results go to The Guardian, Wikipedia, Time, the BBC, etc., discussing the topic -- hugely popular sites.

Google's meant to find popular relevant pages for your search terms. Remember, that's what PageRank was all about. So seems to be working as expected.

This does run into the same problem that Wikipedia runs into, that it insists on using “credible” or “reputable” sources but does not really bother to define that, and it essentially comes down to that sources are not “credible” for disagreeing with their beliefs.

Personally, I have yet to see any “credible” news source and the adage remains that every news article about anything I have even the most minor inside knowledge of seems completely inaccurate, especially the politically laden ones.

No matter what mechanism Google uses to assign such ranking: be it their own judgement or simply an agnostic a.i. that lets the masses decide, I cannot see anything good coming from it and there will always be a bias not based in factuality, but politics.

> I cannot see anything good coming from it and there will always be a bias not based in factuality, but politics.

Well, Google isn't omnipotent and thus it only echos back results which are popular with people, which is basically politics, so yes. If everyone tomorrow instantly started thinking the world was flat (and previous flat earthers start saying the world is round) Google's results would shift pretty dramatically to whatever is the most popular side.

...you don't see anything good coming from Google search results?

...that it's incentivized to return the results that the most people are looking for? As measured by clicks?

If you don't believe the news and you don't find popularity useful either then I honestly can't imagine what you're even looking for then.

Perhaps people of his, and my own, ilk are looking for results that match the search they perform? Why would I care about how popular a result is if all I want is to find a specific web page or a specific piece of information...