Comments on: Real-life experience with the new Google News

By: Mathew

Mathew — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 16:06:06 +0000

That’s a good idea, Philipp — maybe someone at Google will read this :-)

And Drew, I agree — I find it odd that AP is supposed to be a collective and yet it is clearly acting in its own interests and not those of its members.

By: Philipp Lenssen

Philipp Lenssen — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 15:04:41 +0000

They should really figure out where a story cluster originated, and give continuous preference to that URL. Not necessarily always display it on top — the story might age after some hours — but always somewhere visible in the story cluster. Perhaps they should even clarify this with some “source report” link next to a story cluster taking you to the first mention. In fact, they should probably assign “NewsRank” or something for a source known to scoop often :)

By: Drew Curtis

Drew Curtis — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 15:04:36 +0000

The AP’s been scraping stories without giving credit to the original source for years. Can’t imagine why the news community doesn’t rise up and give them a black eye about it. Especially now that the AP is trying to cut everyone else out with this new google deal

Glad we got the original source on the link, we try to do that when possible

By: HMTKSteve

HMTKSteve — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:29:21 +0000

Perhaps it is time for a journalistic code of conduct in regards to sourcing for online content?

Google should also put something in place on Google News so that the original source of a news story gets top billing rather than the most popular source.

In this particular case, was the story written by a local staff writer and then the AP “picked up” the original staff writer’s story or did they write their AP version based on new research and all? If the AP just scraped the story from the news papper than I feel it is up to AP to properly credit the story and provide a link to the originating story. Of course I have no idea what the contracts say in regards to AP grabbing your content…

By: Karoli

Karoli — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 03:25:42 +0000

I’m glad Fark picked them up. It seems wrong to me for AP and Google to syndicate a story from a newspaper and not link back to the paper’s page.

That’s the equivalent of scraping, in my opinion. If newspapers’ online bread and butter is page views and clicks, then it seems like it should be an obligation on Google/AP’s part to link back to the original source.

Besides, it drives me crazy when I do a Google news search on a story happening in Santa Barbara, for example, and end up with the top result being an East Coast paper. It makes no sense whatsoever for me to link a blog post to an out-of-the-area secondary source.