What's Next For Google News

Stony Stevenson writes in with a Computerworld interview with a Google product manager talking about what's coming up for Google News, such as the possible addition of a video component and closer cooperation with YouTube. "One of Google's most popular and controversial services, Google News, is the aggregation and search site that media companies love to hate because it has become a major source of Web traffic and frustrations for many of them.... 'In an ideal world, Google News would show you who broke the story and the other articles that built on that. There are places where we're not doing that perfectly today.'"

EPIC

[TripMaster Monkey]

We get closer to EPIC [albinoblacksheep.com] everyday.

Quality over quantity

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care who broke a story first. What I want is the story that covers the event best.

Re:Good and Bad

[s.bots]

I don't think "mishmashed news" would be a problem for me. I think showing both sides of the story allows people to gather a lot more information and decide for themselves what really happened. It seems like all too often people will simply believe what they're told by the most convenient media outlet and leave it at that. By aggregating all the news from worldwide sources, Google could allow people a much broader view of the world.

Thanks, but..

[Lord Bitman]

Contrary to what moronic sites like Digg (which last I checked only allows one submission per URL, with no editorial review) would have you believe is the "right way" to do things, I really don't care in the slightest who reported on an event "first". I care who reported on it in a manner which tells me best what I want to know about it.

Wont kudos override accuracy?

[TechnoBunny]

If people are rushing to be 'FRIST!' then wont verification of facts come a distant second to making a scoop?

Its bad enough with 24h news networks trying to out do each other - this can only make it worse. Why not rank in terms of the reliability of the source. (How one measures that is, of course, a bit of a problem...)

Re:Good and Bad

[aichpvee]

Only where there are two sides and where both are equally valid. Showing "both" sides of most controversial topics today basically requires you to show one insane position without any evidence to back it and then one that does have evidence.

Re:Good and Bad

[nbauman]

"publish first verify later" attitude.

As a journalist myself I can tell you something about that attitude.

There are different news sources for different purposes, and each one requires a different degree of verifiability.

I knew a guy who edited an electronic newsletter for metals traders. In their business, they have a saying, "buy on rumor, sell on fact." They wanted rumors, and they wanted them immediately. They were paying $1,000 a year subscription for that privilege.

If you happen to be living in New Orleans, and the weather station finds out about a hurricane headed your way, you might want to know about that immediately rather than wait for the White House to verify the facts.

OTOH when I read about the potential dangers of a new drug that millions of people may be taking http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMe0780 99 [nejm.org] , I want the facts to be checked pretty carefully. They've got plenty of time, and that's their responsibility. I read the Wall Street Journal, and they did a pretty good job of verifying the story. And they did it by their midnight deadline. I think the major news media did a pretty good job on the Avandia story -- considering that we won't be able to really verify the facts for another 5 years when the big randomized controlled trials are finished.

I also expect that when the President of the U.S. gives us reasons why we should go to war, the newspapers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller_(journa list)#New_York_Times_career:_2002-2005 [wikipedia.org] won't just parrot his lies, but will do independent, skeptical investigations http://www.democracynow.org/ [democracynow.org] to get all sides of the story and give us enough information so that we can weigh the facts ourselves and figure out the truth. http://www.bartleby.com/130/2.html [bartleby.com] I could reduce journalism to one rule: Always get the other side. If they get both sides, it's good journalism. If not, it's propaganda.

There's plenty of news sources that do that. http://pulitzer.org/ [pulitzer.org] http://pulitzer.org/cgi-bin/year.pl?1979,16 [pulitzer.org] If you don't like the news you see on Google, be a little bit more selective in what you read.

I think readers have a certain responsibility to learn how to think. As the New Scientist suggested last week, people who know how to think will turn the argument around and look at it from the other guy's perspective. It's not fair to complain about the news media just because the stories report facts you don't agree with. If you did agree with them all the time, they wouldn't be doing their job -- which is to give your preconceived notions a kick in the ass sometimes.

Re:Good and Bad

[engwar]

I hope you're not implying that the US-centric version is always the 'valid' side and the one that might show the US in a negative light is always the 'insane position'.

Pretty please? You're not that naive, right?