Much ado about nothing..

Much is being made, and said, about this news item. Seems that Google is going to start including press releases from corporations or lobbying groups in it’s Google News searches. My response? They always have been, indirectly.

I work for an organization that puts out quite a few press releases during the course of the year, and we have a number of member organizations that also put out their own press releases throughout the year. If you ever have access to both the original press release and the “news” articles that are put out based on the press releases, you’d be amazed at the amount of copy/pasting that goes into those “news” articles directly from the press releases.

For my money, if Google News wants to add press releases to their search results, it actually makes the news MORE transparent because if you get a search result that takes you to a company’s press release you know it’s a press release as opposed to some “legitimate news source” that simply copied the press release and passed it off as “news”

Of course there’s always the possibility that news search results will get lost in a sea of press releases, but I have my doubts about that happening.

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