Comments on: Google’s Creeping Journalism http://inspireaction.mindandmedia.com/2007/08/14/googles-creeping-journalism/ A blog about new media, marketing, and communications Fri, 25 Jul 2008 06:04:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 By: Wes Alwan http://inspireaction.mindandmedia.com/2007/08/14/googles-creeping-journalism/#comment-2733 Wes Alwan Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:28:34 +0000 http://inspireaction.mindandmedia.com/2007/08/14/googles-creeping-journalism/#comment-2733 One way to look at this: Google is merely adding a social networking feature to a content syndication service. Of course the distinguishing feature here is that Google will have to carefully vet comments to make sure they come from sources genuinely involved in stories. In other words, they will indeed have to get into journalism. This is complicated by the fact that news stories are rife with sources whose primary objective is publicity. It is also typical for sources to feel betrayed and misrepresented even by positive stories (i.e., they weren't positive enough, or sources feel manipulated after the fact into saying things that any decent person would know are off the record, despite the fact that you put them explicitly on the record at the beginning of the interview). Even beyond the issue of branding, Google has opened a can of worms here: some news organizations already resent being scraped (er, at least in Belgium: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&refer=&sid=ax2kjV7VdHEY). Now they will be getting scraped by a content syndication machine that has added an active journalistic component. And then there is the inevitable fact that they will be creating a battleground for "misquoted" sources, PR people, and other spinners to try to achieve with Google News Comments what they failed to achieve with their less-than-gullible interviewer. In the end, it's also an exciting idea, and perhaps too hard to resist once it's occurred to you (and when you have a Google News infrastructure to back it up). Of course, the blogosphere is abuzz with this announcement: Bruce Clay has some interesting comments on this "can of worms", especially concerning the issue of how they are going to deal a) comment editorial decisions and b) comment moderation, including dealing with the truckloads of spam that afflict even minor blogs: http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/archives/2007/08/comments_in_goo.html Adario Strange at Wired Blog Network worries further about the editorial implications: will any comment by a source be published? Will journalists be able to respond to comments by sources? http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/08/diggle-rising-g.html Blogoscoped points to the possibility of the dilution of well-founded investigative reporting by spin-meisters: http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-08-08-n65.html Searchengineland has a very useful Q&A with Google Product Manager Josh Cohen, verifying that indeed reporters and story subjects as well as sources can respond; that Google will not moderate comments except to verify they come from valid sources; and claiming that this doesn't put Google into the content-creation business ("We don't want to create content, and we don't want to be in the content creation business. We want to be the conduit connecting people with information."): http://searchengineland.com/070808-191446.php Ars Technica claims that this puts Google firmly in content creation territory, and worries about the implications for news companies and brands: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070808-who-needs-journalists-google-news-to-let-newsmakers-comment-on-stories.html Micropersuasion talks about the inherent risk for Google: http://www.micropersuasion.com/2007/08/google-news-now.html#comment-78764682 More on the implications for PR professionals: http://www.prweek.com/us/news/article/731254/Google-source-feature-draws-mixed-reviews/ One way to look at this: Google is merely adding a social networking feature to a content syndication service. Of course the distinguishing feature here is that Google will have to carefully vet comments to make sure they come from sources genuinely involved in stories. In other words, they will indeed have to get into journalism. This is complicated by the fact that news stories are rife with sources whose primary objective is publicity. It is also typical for sources to feel betrayed and misrepresented even by positive stories (i.e., they weren’t positive enough, or sources feel manipulated after the fact into saying things that any decent person would know are off the record, despite the fact that you put them explicitly on the record at the beginning of the interview). Even beyond the issue of branding, Google has opened a can of worms here: some news organizations already resent being scraped (er, at least in Belgium: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&refer=&sid=ax2kjV7VdHEY). Now they will be getting scraped by a content syndication machine that has added an active journalistic component. And then there is the inevitable fact that they will be creating a battleground for “misquoted” sources, PR people, and other spinners to try to achieve with Google News Comments what they failed to achieve with their less-than-gullible interviewer.

In the end, it’s also an exciting idea, and perhaps too hard to resist once it’s occurred to you (and when you have a Google News infrastructure to back it up).

Of course, the blogosphere is abuzz with this announcement:

Bruce Clay has some interesting comments on this “can of worms”, especially concerning the issue of how they are going to deal a) comment editorial decisions and b) comment moderation, including dealing with the truckloads of spam that afflict even minor blogs: http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/archives/2007/08/comments_in_goo.html

Adario Strange at Wired Blog Network worries further about the editorial implications: will any comment by a source be published? Will journalists be able to respond to comments by sources? http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/08/diggle-rising-g.html

Blogoscoped points to the possibility of the dilution of well-founded investigative reporting by spin-meisters: http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-08-08-n65.html

Searchengineland has a very useful Q&A with Google Product Manager Josh Cohen, verifying that indeed reporters and story subjects as well as sources can respond; that Google will not moderate comments except to verify they come from valid sources; and claiming that this doesn’t put Google into the content-creation business (”We don’t want to create content, and we don’t want to be in the content creation business. We want to be the conduit connecting people with information.”): http://searchengineland.com/070808-191446.php

Ars Technica claims that this puts Google firmly in content creation territory, and worries about the implications for news companies and brands: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070808-who-needs-journalists-google-news-to-let-newsmakers-comment-on-stories.html

Micropersuasion talks about the inherent risk for Google: http://www.micropersuasion.com/2007/08/google-news-now.html#comment-78764682

More on the implications for PR professionals: http://www.prweek.com/us/news/article/731254/Google-source-feature-draws-mixed-reviews/

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