I-Newswire Removed From Google News
Google has kicked out the PR website I-Newswire from Google News, after a recent incident where a 15-year old’s joke wound up being reported as legitimate news. In other news, Tom Vendetta is my new hero.
But seriously, I hate the idea that news releases can make it into Google News, and that any idiot (myself included) can submit one, no matter how ridiculous, ruining the integrity of one of the most popular websites. You think if I let anyone submit a news story here, we wouldn’t wind up with ridiculous crap? Just look at Digg!
Thanks to an inadvertant and embarresing incident, Tom Vendetta has kicked one PR site out of Google News. With any luck, we can get rid of all of them in a matter of weeks. Seriously, if you submit some stupid releases to a PR site still in News, then submit it here, I’ll give you some publicity as we try to end this menace.
(via Google News. Yeah, Google News!)
TomV is my hero too - frick’in hilarious if you ask me.
WRT legit stuff in Google News: didn’t the New York Times recently report on the identify of the prisoner who was zapped in the mid-east … and now appears they’ll have to retract it - DOOPPPP!
Comment by alek | March 16, 2006
i bet they allow sloppy news sites into google news because they thought their all mighty algo-whatever would do the job only human eyes can.
Comment by Hashim | March 16, 2006
Hashim, not necessarily true. Plenty of false stories get quickly propagated through the internet and in some instances end up on legitimate news sources. When a story’s got momentum like that, there’s a lot of actual people looking at it and it still gets taken as truth. Google News is just uncovering what has been a growing media problem: not doing basic fact-checking and using credible sources.
Comment by Niraj | March 16, 2006
Niraj, in this case Google News is responsible for a fake news story propogating through the media. If they hadn’t accepted a bad source, the story wouldn’t have been repeated all over the internet and many media outlets. That’s what makes this even worse. Journalists rely on Google News, and this was certainly a big of a black eye, or at the least, a bruise.
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | March 16, 2006
Nathan,
I don’t mean to be argumentative, but what does it say about journalists if they “rely on Google News” - what happened to “trust, but verify”
Recent example was the Chinese Bloggers that got “censor’ed” … but in actual fact shut themselves down - even the venerable BBC reported on this one - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4787302.stm - which, of course, showed up in Google News.
My two cents is ditto what Niraj said - Google News (and online in general) is just making it easier to see this stuff.
alek
Comment by alek | March 16, 2006
Bloggers, or worse, Diggers, very often don’t verify. They should, but they don’t. If a story makes its way onto enough blogs, mainstream media might start mentioning it, even without knowing the source. It is difficult for a story to spread beyond that without deliberate fakery, but it happens.
Google News makes it easier for bad news to spread, yes, but had a bad source entirely, and let it stay in. Press releases, especially publicly submittable press releases, do not beling in news search. Imagine if the comments feed for this blog was in Google News. That would be absurd!
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | March 16, 2006
Roger Nathan that if your comments fed into Google News that you would be inudated by a flood of Viagra, Poker, Real-estate, and other “postings”
Yea, digg has a bit less (!) credibility than Google News … but it can be pretty hilareous - read some of the comments when Blogoscope’s “Patriot Search” hit digg - http://digg.com/links/Patriot_Search_to_replace_Google
Comment by alek | March 16, 2006
Just because one fool peed in the beach, you do not stop taking bath in the sea. Its sad that a mad youngster misused free press release and has discredited i-newswire. Google is playing big daddy and black listing i-newswire. If the youngster had written that he was hired by Doogle Corporation in Rajasthan as Security Expert would any one have bothered to verify? If the mad cap wrote that Rajesh Bachan died dancing to a holi song in Bollywood would anyone have bothered? Today society is mature enough to know what to believe what not to believe, whom to believe and whom not to believe, when to belive and when not to beieve, where to believe and where not to believe.
Let Google and the net community wake up to realities and not talk of non existent values in journalism etc.
Comment by BR Natarajan | March 16, 2006
Now, come on! I do a great job filtering out comment spam!
Natarajan, one fool may have peed in the beach, but it is supposed to be a private beach, yet they let “bad elements” sneak in through a hole in the fence (good metaphor, right?). Google is blacklisting I-Newswire because there is absolutely no system in place for accountability in the case of fake articles. If I-Newswire finds a way to introduce accuracy and accountability, they might make it back in.
If society is mature enough to know better, then why didn’t we in this case? This fake story spread pretty easily, despite our advanced society.
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | March 17, 2006
Nathan,
You do a GREAT job of filtering comment spam - was just pointing out that if your blog commments were auto-fed into Google News, you’d get inudated … so maybe I wouldn’t see ‘em all because you’d filter, but you’d definitely be a target for the spammers.
alek
Comment by alek | March 18, 2006
[…] It’s great to see Google including some quality material after some of the recent stories that have appeared there eh? […]
Pingback by Multilingual Search included in Google News © 300km North of Moscow | March 22, 2006
I don’t like the spin on it: it’s vandalizing a good resource, not finding a flaw in the system. So far, those responsible have gotten away with it! I doubt we get real and/or complete news nowadays, and I-Newswire helped.
Even large nonprofits such as the American Red Cross used it. It’s a shame society’s lost the outlet. The Jersey kid and the blogger should be kept away from computers for a good while!
Comment by Vincent Bartning/USAKIA | April 19, 2006
Can someone please help me, I am looking to put out some press releases and wanted to know how one would get a news story into Google News. Any ideas are welcome.
Thanks in Advance,
Rahim
Comment by rahim haji | May 11, 2006
THIS IS REALLY UNFAIR TO SMALL BUSINESSESS.
We also need a voice. If only the larger firms, or those with the funds $$$ to invest on premium Press release services can get into Google News this limits our ability to have a voice.
Don’t blame the PR Wires, blame google for not filtering releases properly. But even Google, shouldn’t receive all credit. JOURNALISTS should confirm sources. Google should be used not as an authoratative source, but as one of the first sources of TIPS. So in closing, someone help small bizz have a voice.
Comment by Small business person | July 8, 2007