Jerry Brito

Google News is people! It’s people!

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Google has a great PR company. Its still-in-beta Google News page has been up for months. Yet as soon as they pulled the trigger on the proverbial blast-faxed press release, dozens of articles about the automatically generated news page sprang up all over the press. Look, even I’m writing about it.

What interests me, though, is the story these articles all seem to tell. Namely, that this could put reporters out of business. Today’s column by Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post is typical of the ink Google News has gotten:

Who needs reporters?

Why spend money on whiny, self-centered, 401(k)-obsessed human beings when you can produce a nice news Web site with quiet, easy-to-abuse computers?

That’s the thinking at Google.com, the popular search engine, which just rolled out a spiffy, up-to-the-minute page with hundreds of links to news stories — untouched by sweaty hands.

Which raises an intriguing question: Is news in the Net age just a bloodless compilation of electronic connections to global media outlets, allowing users to point-and-click their way to bleary-eyed nirvana? Or does it require sharp editing judgments, seasoned beat reporters, provocative columnists and a small dollop of personality?

What the hell is he talking about? It reads as though Kurtz didn’t visit the Google site. All it does is aggregate news from around the Web. You still need (and I dare say will always need at least until the advent of AI) reporters–whiny, sweaty or otherwise. I don’t see how Google is doing away with “seasoned beat reporters, provocative columnists [or] personality.” Yet this is what all the stories about Google News trumpet. The only people Google seems to be edging out are editors, and even they are somewhat indispensable.

Google’s feat of producing a neat, informative page that harnesses the full potential of the Web is a fantastic one. But people will still gravitate towards sites like Slate, Fox News, NRO, MSNBC, and the rest because they like a particular editorial slant and because readers have built a certain amount of goodwill and trust with these outlets.

In his article, Kurtz seems to end up at this conclusion, but only after first sounding the robot alarm. This is an alarm that we’re going to be hearing more and more often as computers begin to match humans in judgment. Some day my reporter friends will be liberated by robots. They will be free to stay home and write the great American novel instead of having to follow around congresscritters or whatnot. But not today.

Sep 30, 2002 | Comments