All The News That's Fit To Google?

Google News may be where more and more people are turning to get their news these days, but is it also a site more and more are learning to manipulate? Christian Science Monitor's Randy Dotinga asks the question in an article today:

When a New Jersey teenager decided to create a fictional story about being hired by one of the Internet's largest companies, he knew just where to spread the news - with the unwitting help of the company itself.

Earlier this month, Thomas Vendetta submitted his fake press release about being hired by Google to Google News, a popular site that automatically trolls 4,500 sources for their latest posts. Sure enough, the release appeared on the world's most popular website for news.

The incident, while unusual, illustrates the hazards of Google's automated approach to picking news stories. And it throws an odd spotlight on an entire industry that has sprouted up to ensure that their clients' press releases pop up next to stories from major newspapers when users of Google or Yahoo go trolling for news.

Are these "aggregators" providing the news - or are they diluting it with the fakery, hucksterism, and puffery that affects the rest of the Internet?

Ultimately, anyone who uses the news aggregation sites should consider the advice of Thomas Vendetta, the New Jersey teenager who wasn't actually hired by Google: "You're free to believe what you want, but be careful what you do believe."