On the online-news list, Rusty Foster of Kuro5hin just pointed to this Register UK story about Google News incorporating press releases into its Google News page.
I know it’s old-fashioned of me, but I’ve got to take issue with Google’s decision to pollute its news pages with press releases.
I applaud Google’s idea of opening up the news process to those outside the traditional news establishment. The frequency of appearance of obscure foreign news publications, for example, is a great element of Google News. But why add PR releases to the news mix and not, say, news weblogs?
Yes, on rare occasions there’s a nugget of real news contained in a press release — but if you print it verbatim, with no background or context, you’re pretty much involved in marketing or PR, not news.
The late PointCast News Network used to mix news and PR releases as well, as in this headline to a press release that ticked across its screen:
CLINTON SHOWS SHOCKING DISREGARD FOR THE VALUES OF THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS, AGAIN REWARDS PRO-ABORTION ALLIES.
Does any journalist really doubt that a press release from Philip Morris, Monsanto or Exxon-Mobil (to cite three of the releases already on Google News’ site) will consist of anything except slanted propaganda and distortions or omissions of the truth?
Certainly, there’s value to be had in legitimate business announcements, and Google should indeed run them on an appropriate page — but not mixed in with news, even if it’s labeled as such. Why? 99.99% of Google’s readers have never received a business press release, so they don’t know how to judge them. As in: skeptically. Printing them alongside blurbs and pointers to articles in the New York Times or CNN unduly enhances their believability.
The good folks at Google have boasted in the past that they don’t have a single journalist among its 500-some employees. This development proves it. I’m afraid Google News is diluting its value with this new move more than they realize.
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
on the other hand, at least google does label the source of those press releases. i always find it disconcerting to see the press releases from companies i’ve worked for showing up virtually verbatim in publications, especially when a byline is slapped on them.
perhaps having the actual releases show up next to such pieces will help shed some light on them.
Bad call Jim. Google News does not label the source as a press release. As The Register article says, many of these “news stories” are attributed to yahoo.
You also invert the authority for truth, cap T, back to the press release. How can the “press release” shed light – the light of truth? – onto something that has already added missing context, fact checked, and stripped out the lies.
Good journalism does this – and I suggest you read more good journalism.
ah, sorry. i simply looked at the example the register provided, and didn’t catch the bit about others being attributed to yahoo news. (i absolutely agree that is a bad thing.)
and i certainly don’t believe only truth (no matter how you capitalize it) comes from press releases, the truth i see possibly being revealed by this are the lazy publications that simply regurgitate press releases (sometimes with a reporter’s byline). it’s the same reason a site like pollingreport.com is useful. one man’s added context can be another’s spin.
here’s an example of the riaa press release, unattributed, on a “news” site. on a google news search (here), this story comes up far before the original press release.
(make no mistake, though. this is the only example i found in a quick scan across about a hundred results, just looking for stories that led with the first paragraph of the release.)
part of finding good journalism is reading critically, and looking for these sorts of shenanigans. thanks to google news, i now know not to go to soundgenerator.com for my music news.
Hi Jim,
I was interested in your comments with regard to our news service. Ordinairily we write our news stories from scratch. There are however occasions when posting a press release on our site is useful for our members and users to read directly. We are a news source for many news portals and as you know our news is also taken by google and sometimes we have a headline story. I agree that it is annoying when it is a press release and not an original version of a story. I hope that this scenario will not stop you using our site as I beleive in the main our stories are quite different and very much cross-genre. Our news on google does generate many hits and as an independant site it is crucial to us to get the word out and get more users.
All the best
Andrew T. Mackay
I took a look at soundgenerator.com and thought their news pieces to be of excellent quality! so there!
Yeah I agree the site rocks!