Google wants you to comment

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Google News has a feature called “comments from people in the news.” That’s comments from you folks, folks that have been quoted in the news. Pretty dang interesting:

The days when the journalist had the last say about a subject are long gone. This thought is usually expressed by repeating — and then dismissing as outdated — the words of A. J. Liebling: “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”

“Owning a press” today is as simple as publishing a blog, right? (That would make more than 100 million press owners, by some counts.) But not all presses are made equal. The leaders in online news are the familiar names — CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, The New York Times, BBC, The Washington Post — so a source’s response to a journalist’s work won’t necessarily carry the same volume as the original article, even online.

Google News, an increasingly popular way to get news online, may tip that balance, however, with a feature it calls “Comments From People in the News.” The idea is simple: if you have been quoted in an article that appears on Google News, which presents links and summaries from 4,500 news sources, including the familiar big players, you can post a comment that will be paired with that article. (Journalists can comment, as well, Google says, though none have done so thus far.)

This is the Google Blog that talks about the comment action.

This is the New York Times story that talks about the Google News comments.