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Google News Will Now Highlight Local News Sources For Major Stories (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the little-guy dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Google's News section will now highlight the importance of local news sources. "When a local story is picked up by national publishers, it can be difficult for local sources to be heard even after they've done the legwork and research to break a story," admits James Morehead, Google News product manager. Google is helping with a new change today that will see a "Local Source" tag applied to all Google News instances. Google is tagging local news based on where a publisher has written about previously and matching it to a story location. Tagged articles will be available on the web and in Google's iOS and Android apps, and will serve as a way to highlight a local source on a national story.

18 comments

  1. Did they find homegrown clickbait? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Google also seems to display the clickbaitiest headlines first, followed by the rest. Does that mean they've found more local bits thereof?

    1. Re:Did they find homegrown clickbait? by pushing-robot · · Score: 2

      Or, you know, maybe clickbait naturally rises to the top because people click on it.

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      How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
    2. Re:Did they find homegrown clickbait? by Mashiki · · Score: 2

      Clickbait is having a hard time surviving right now. Sites that thrive on it are seeing massive drops in uniques and page views. Whether it's a gawker property or something from vice, it's the same. People have had enough, so that's going to lead to one of two things, either they're going to double down and create a new form of clickbait. Or the media is going to start moving back to actual news. You can't forget the assholes out there either that believe that news isn't to tell the truth, but to reduce harm to those "vulnerable groups." AKA fuck facts, we're going for feels.

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      Om, nomnomnom...
    3. Re:Did they find homegrown clickbait? by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      The local journalists have done the majority of legwork to get the news out. Then the big news sites repeat it and make the big bucks.

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      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  2. Eh? by Threni · · Score: 2

    It always has. I don't use the service much but I'd love a way to turn it off. For all their clever AI, google consistently gets my location wrong, and I'll never want to read the local papers, online or otherwise, because, like all local papers, they're just shitty rags thrown together by a skeleton staff, and consisting mostly of ads by estate agents.

    1. Re:Eh? by Gavagai80 · · Score: 3, Informative

      "Local" in this context means local to where the story takes place, not local to you.

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      This space intentionally left blank
    2. Re:Eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This appears to actually be showing -original- sources first. That is, local to where the news event happened. I came here to complain about the same thing based on the headline, but then I decided to actually read the summary and found out they've done exactly what I was going to say they should.

  3. not always fair by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If Google's real goal is to highlight whoever broke a story, then that's what they should implement. With their hackish solution, if a national publisher breaks a local story, then Google's algorithm will highlight the reprint from a nearby news source as if they deserved the credit.

    1. Re:not always fair by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      How often does a national publisher break a story? Not as often as they want you to think. Most of it is local. So the new algorithm may miss sometimes but it is better than before.

      This type of posts sounds like my customers.
      We give you crap data, while you have found a way to organized far faster and more accurate than any human, there are still some mistakes. How dare the computer misinterprete bad data.

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      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  4. It's all about the Tubmans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Clearly, Google is just dissing the major players who have been pissed at Google ripping off their content but have been having trouble making any legal action stick. So Google is ripping off smaller players too, so it's "fair".

  5. Foreign News Source Please by fatp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Living in somewhere basically all local news sources are government mouthpieces, what I want is foreign news source.

  6. Quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This really does not affect the quality of the news. It's still mainstream media - propaganda and distraction.

  7. will be available by epine · · Score: 1

    The passive voice foretells exactly how much personal control I expect to have over its choice of bedroom and duration of stay.

    You want the master bedroom with the en suite? I was kind of hoping you wouldn't, but sure, far be it from me to exert influence in my own home.

  8. and hopefully flag paywalled sites right on the fa by swschrad · · Score: 2

    you KNOW you don't want to have your interest piqued, only to click through and be stared down with "turn off your ad blocker or you can't see me" or "subscriber access only."

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    if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?