Google News is letting people and companies post comments alongside the stories. The catch? They have to be one of the article’s subjects.
This is a significant development: Good journalists try to be objective, but it’s near impossible to see the situation through their subjects’ eyes. The process required to fashion a series of facts and quotes into a compact narrative inevitably loses a degree of context and depth.
Letting story subjects respond could enrich the stories and increase a reader’s understanding in a way traditional media reporting cannot.
Because of the reach and breadth of Google News, subjects have a strong incentive to comment, and Google will display these comments more prominently than the average online newspaper or magazine.
Of course, as Philip Lenssen from Google Blogoscoped points out, this feature also opens the floodgates for spin, rants, and outright lies. But even this content broadens the story and can be interesting in its own way. At the same time, by keeping the conversation on Google’s site, it could have a negative affect on blogs, where these discussions tend to take place.
To post comments, subjects have to write to news-comments@google.com, add a link to the story, and give information that will enable Google verify that they are who they say they are.
Philip also notes that this process, which would seem to require significant manual effort, is strange for Google, considering their love of automation.
It also
We look forward to watching the experiment unfold.
4 Comments
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Qui Diaz said:
I wonder what percentage of subjects will actually engage in the new discussion platform. My gut says that conversations will continue in full effect external to Google News. This won’t thwart blog talk.
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Lou Paglia said:
This could really be an interesting development. Imagine anyone who feels they were mis-represented or or mis-quoted, this could be a way for their PR agency or themselves to “right the wrong” so-to-speak. The element that makes this an unknown is whether or not people are going to think to go to Google News to go and add commentary. The second key question as to whether people are going to go Google to see if there are comments by news participants.
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ShangHai Rent said:
I wonder what percentage of subjects will actually engage in the new discussion platform. My gut says that conversations will continue in full effect external to Google News. This won’t thwart blog talk.
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10668844 said:
Does anyone know how Google will be qualifying interesting articles or will all articles be open to people mentioned in the article.
I’ve read that Google will require that all respondents provide contact information so that Google can contact them and verify their identity.
This seems like a very laborious step that most people will shrug off.
The way I currently understand this offering, I agree with @Lou about the PR effect. I think that this offering will turn into one big PR bonanza and destroy anything news worthy.
