Google Wants People In The News To Clarify News Reports
from the interesting-ideas dept
There's an old saying about the press, that whenever you're involved in a news story, you can almost guarantee that the press coverage will get the story wrong. It's amazing how true this is -- but it appears that Google News is trying to do something about it. It's launching a new service that will let those who are involved in a particular news story comment on the news coverage on Google News. That is, if there's a story about you, you'll have the opportunity to add your own perspective (or counter any points you disagree with in the news coverage) and have it shown on Google News linked to the relevant news stories. It's an interesting idea, though it has a number of hurdles to overcome. First of all, Google just set themselves up to be besieged by people who want to comment on a story who aren't actually participants (or by people pretending to be part of the story). The hassle of figuring out who's really part of the story isn't going to be easy. In fact, it seems like it would almost definitely be more costly than whatever benefit this might bring. On top of this, Danny Sullivan lays out a number of problems with this idea in the link above, starting with the fact that people already have the ability to post their own thoughts on their own sites. Wouldn't it simply make a lot more sense if Google and its magical algorithm did a better job of associating such responses to the news stories? Still, in an age where Congress still thinks the Fairness Doctrine is needed, here's yet another example of how technology is making sure that everyone has ample opportunity to get "their side" out on any particular story.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: google news, newspapers
Companies: google
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Re:
The appearance doesn't need to be any different. Right now, if the person comments, it would show up right after the original story on Google News as a link. There's no reason that link can't be to the source.
Otherwise, people wouldn't even know there was a rebuttal, or might have trouble finding it.
Again, the appearance would be identical.
Let's not obfuscate - it wouldn't be very hard to make sure the rebuttal came from the office of the article's target.
It would take a lot of manpower to make sure of that actually. For very little benefit.
BTW - the Fairness Doctrine, pretty much as it originally was, is still a very good idea. All upside and no down.
I like how you make a broad statement without a single fact to back it up.
However, I see plenty of downside:
1. It assumes that there are two sides to every story. That either obfuscates the more nuances aspects of a story, hides additional viewpoints entirely, or potentially raises the importance of a ridiculous position. That's a huge downside.
2. It stifles free speech by forcing a news provider to think carefully before airing any opinion, knowing that some random "other side" will be required to get equal time.
3. It's not necessary. There are nearly infinite other arenas where any party can get out their position.
4. It opens the door for more gov't restrictions on free speech.
Shall I go on? To say that there are no downsides is flat out wrong.
Add Your Comment