N&R does a good job with blogs, certainly. Blogs make sense for publishing certain data — and there are plenty of other ways to publish data that also make sense for newspapers. Some of those ways have to do with community, some of those ways have to do with getting down and thinking the stuff you do on a daily basis all the way through online.

You are a media guy, and I am a J-school grad and former reporter. You know as well as I do that most media has been drug, kicking and screaming into using new technology. Most media owners are only interested in squeezing as much out of their products as possible. It is not very popular to invest or reinvest in the media outlet.

I live in your former state, and I have been impressed with what the N&R has done with their blogs, and I know the N&O used the Web early on to break news, but for the most part, media was slow to see the importance of the Web. I think it is important for Google, Facebook and others to push media outlets to reexamine traditional ideas about community.

I’d say the scare-factor comes from Google’s superior command of technology and technology applications. The more Google cuts newspaper’s turf the more newspapers wonder “where will this stop?”

Also, this particular move is different for Google. Usually Google puts out tools that rely on automation and databases (take a look at the products Google has launched and is working on). This move relies on people: The people writing the comments on articles, and then the people inside Google who verify the comments.

As far as where it exists right now, I don’t see it either. SearchEngineLand has some screenshots of it, but I don’t know how they got those.

-Joe

It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t see how it differs much from newspaper sites that offer robust comment sections. I suppose the real difference is that a lot more people skim the Google News headlines than look at the comment sections for a specific, regional newspaper.

This stuff might cause a lot of handwringing for the news industry, but if it is done responsibly, it can be a benefit for the news consumer.