I, for one, have grown used to Google coming out of left field with potentially paradigm shifting new “features”. When they added the ability to comment on news stories, and the call rang out that it was the end of journalism as we knew it — I decided to stay quiet. This week, Google has raised the bar once again and has decided to partner with the major news wire services. Which brings us to this week’s question.

Google

Question: Is Google going to be the end of journalism as we know it?

Probably not. While Google subsuming the content of the major news wire services means that local papers that rely on this content to fill their pages will have to find a new way of juicing Google, I feel that this push will be good for an industry that is still going through digital growing pains.

This move will, hopefully, give newspapers a reason to analyze what they are doing with their online space. Like Scott Karp put eloquently in his discussion on the subject, the web has destroyed many of the old paradigms, including the idea that people are interested in reading the 101st copy of the same article pulled from AP. This might work for the physical copies of local papers, but online readers are looking for more than dry facts — they want insights.

If you take a look at most newspaper thats have placed their content online you’ll notice that much of it looks like carbon copies of the physical paper set to bits and bytes. Few of these institutions are using the medium for what it is good for, closing the feedback loop between publishers and readers. I hate to admit it, but in this way the New York Times is well ahead of the game. At least they recognize that the web is a new medium and needs to be treated with different considerations.

All Google is trying to do is purge some of the noise from the system. Why should there be ten thousand copies of the exact same story littering search results? I am not saying that the news wires provide the definitive answers, but at the very least they do it better than those who draw all of their facts from the wire.

Web 2.0 Roundup

What can local newspapers do now that the Google juice is about to run dry? Maybe it is time to take a look at new models. Instead of just reposting your paper online, post only the parts that are relevant to your readership. Even if you don’t choose to remove information, you can add value by giving your reader base more to do while they are on your site. It might be time to open up comments, or at least provide a forum where people can discuss the news of the day.

Maybe it is even time to do the one thing that bloggers can never beat you at, and that is to get your journalists to directly interact with their local communities. Readers want above all else to be presented with facts that are relevant to them from people that they trust. The one thing that Google can never take away from you is the trust that your readers have in you as their voice. It’s time that publishing once again made that its top priority.

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