Just exactly who came out on top dominated the airwaves [GALLO/GETTY]

This week's News Divide looks at the latest head-to-head contests lighting up US television. For once it is neither a sporting match nor a pop talent show -  but politics.

With less then a month of campaigning left before Americans go to the polls the candidates, and their deputies, got a chance to talk directly to each other and to the voters in live debates.

But do these encounters serve any real purpose in these days of spin and soundbite and can an undecided voter make a choice based on rehearsed rhetoric?

We put the formats, the cue cards and the polished performances under the spotlight to see if the media is pulling its weight in the search for the most powerful leader on earth.

Google has changed the way people consume information [GALLO/GETTY]

Also on the show a look back at ten years of Google.

The internet search engine conceived by two Stanford University students in 1996 was incorporated as Google Inc in 1998.

Since then it has become one of, if not the, most powerful players on the internet; a position it consolidated with numerous acquisitions including the ubiquitous video-sharing website YouTube in 2006.

However the company has also been a victim of its own success.

It has come in for criticism for monopolising the market, for its storage and the use of personal data from its users.

It also came out unfavourably after bowing to official Chinese pressure to disable politically sensitive search terms in the country. 

But Google has had a profound effect on the global media, totally revolutionising the way many of us consume news and entertainment.