Google Does a Tim Andrews with Local News

February 15, 2018

Google is one of the country’s leading news providers, because it pulls its stories from many different news sources. While Google provides good news coverage for international and national affairs, local news stories are still better curated by the hometown news. Google is changing its approach to local news says Business Insider: “Google Is Building A Local News Services That Anyone Can Contribute To.”

Google’s new endeavor is called Bulletin and it allows citizen journalists to write, blog, vlog, and share their images straight from a mobile device without an official news outlet. Google wants to ramp up local stories within communities that traditional news outlets would miss.

Google wants to boost its own news service as a viable outlet and connect people with more local information, but the problem with the general concern is accuracy and quality. Google has already been cited for promoting fake news during the 2018 presidential election and providing an outlet for the average joe without valid research is a big issue.

The problem with the Internet is that people who normally are not given a voice have a medium to be heard. This has many extraordinary benefits, but it also has just as many problems. Fake news does need to be stopped, but is would Google Bulletin only be adding fuel to the fire?

The only thing to do is wait and see what happens:

“It’ll be interesting to see how this rolls out and fits into Google’s strategy for grabbing more eyeballs through its News and Search services. Beyond getting people to try Bulletin when they’re starting out reporting local news, it’ll have to incentivize them for sticking around once they get the hang of it and feel the need to grow an audience for themselves.”

Is Google embracing the spirit of the “old” America Online?

Whitney Grace, February 15, 2018

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Google, News

Comments

One Response to “Google Does a Tim Andrews with Local News”

Marydee Ojala on February 15th, 2018 8:15 am

I think you mean Tim Armstrong, not Tim Andrews (Armstrong was at AOL; Andrews was head of Factiva, now at ASI).

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.