BackGoogle News adds Local Source tag to highlight local stories
The section in Google News will pull content from regional papers to hyper-local blogs that otherwise gets buried under the deluge of national and global news
Premium
New Delhi: Google Inc. now put its spotlight on local news publishers, with the introduction of a local source tag in Google News. The company announced this in a blog post on Monday: “We’re excited to share that a new “Local Source" tag is now live across all Google News editions. This new feature brings greater exposure for local news outlets reporting on stories that have gone national.
“Local Source articles are identified automatically by looking at where a publisher has written about in the past and comparing that to the story location."
Appending articles on Google News is not something new and the search giant has been doing this for a long time. For example, Google often tags a story as “Opinion" or “In-Depth" depending on the coverage, in the search results. But from now on users will also see a ‘Local source’ tag.
In the expanded story box (a story box is a group of articles about the same news event )on news.google.com and in the Google News & Weather iOS and Android apps.
Tagging articles with the Local Source is important as local news publishers play a critical role in covering the stories that have maximum impact in local areas, schools and neighbourhoods. “Local reporters are often members of the communities they serve, bringing additional context and perspective to a story. Local news is also important to our users."
Google cites the March 2015 Pew Research study Local News in a Digital Age, which looked at three metro areas across the US, and claimed that “nearly nine-in-ten residents follow local news closely—and about half do so very closely".
With more than 75,000 news sources, many of the publishers in Google News specialize on specific topics and locales. The local section in Google News will pull content from regional papers to hyper-local blogs that otherwise would get buried under the deluge of national and international news.
The new feature is live globally across Google News.
Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!
