Google News was a legitimate contender for “Best Internet News Service With More Than 1 Million Monthly Visitors” in an award presentation by Editor and Publisher.

Should a site like Google News even be considered as one of the best popular news sites.

There are plenty of postives to be said for the Google service. I use it frequently, and I find information that I’d never otherwise have access to.

But…

Google is an aggregator of news. They don’t have people investigating stories, or even writing stories. There are press releases and articles within the news mix which are more marketing and less news.

While Google is a large target when it comes to the lack of original content, there are quite a few positives that make Google’s approach compelling. Consider the ability to read an article in the news from a paper local to that story. Or to have the same story filtered though different perspectives.

And the ability to search for a specific topic of interest can be as valuable as having an intelligent editor making specific decisions regarding what information will be part of a news paper, and how it will be presented. And there are times when it’s even more valuable, because there isn’t always an intelligent editor to make those decisions.