Google to bring new publishing platform to help local newsrooms go digital

The new publishing tool will be made available to publishers globally later in the year.

To help small newsrooms overcome challenges in their strive to go digital, Google is creating a new publishing platform for local news publishers.

Google News Initiative has partnered with web development company, Automattic and WordPress.com -- home to 30 per cent of the world's websites -- and has invested $1.2 million in its effort to create "Newspack".

"Newspack" is a fast, secure, low-cost publishing system tailor-made to the needs of small newsrooms, Google said in a statement on Monday.

The new publishing tool will be made available to publishers globally later in the year.

"Newspapers with long histories have had to cut back on staff and reduce coverage and reporters who try to start new digital publications face an interminable struggle with technical and business problems," said Jim Albrecht, Product Management Director, Google Search.

"Journalists should be writing stories and covering their communities, not worrying about designing websites, configuring CMSs, or building commerce systems."

While "Newspack" publishers will have access to all the plugins created by the WordPress developer community, the core product is not trying to be all things to all publishers.

"It is trying to help small publishers succeed by building best practices into the product while removing distractions that may divert scarce resources. We like to call it aan opinionated CMS -- it knows the right thing to do, even when you don't," explained Albrecht.

Google said it will also advise on the "Newspack" feature set, based on feedback from its extensive contact with local publishers, and provide technical support on the integration of Google products.

Google News in November launched a new innovation challenge to help scribes and publishers in the Asia-Pacific region produce quality journalism in the digital age.

According to Google, in Asia-Pacific, journalists and publishers are increasingly grappling with questions over how quality journalism can thrive in the digital age.

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YouTube to crack down on fake news by using 'authoritative' sources

In the wake of breaking news events when misinformation can spread quickly, YouTube will begin showing users short text previews of news stories in video search results.

Google's YouTube says it is taking several steps to ensure the veracity of news on its service by cracking down on misinformation and supporting news organisations.

The company said on Monday that it will make "authoritative" news sources more prominent, especially in the wake of breaking news events when misinformation can spread quickly.

At such times, YouTube will begin showing users short text previews of news stories in video search results, as well as warnings that the stories can change. The goal is to counter the fake videos that can proliferate immediately after shootings, natural disasters and other major happenings.

For example, YouTube search results prominently showed videos purporting to "prove" that mass shootings like the one that killed at least 59 in Las Vegas were fake, acted out by "crisis actors."

In these urgent cases, traditional video won't do, since it takes time for news outlets to produce and verify high-quality clips. So YouTube aims to short-circuit the misinformation loop with text stories that can quickly provide more accurate information. Company executives announced the effort at YouTube's New York offices.

Those officials, however, offered only vague descriptions of which sources YouTube will consider authoritative. Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan said the company isn't just compiling a simple list of trusted news outlets, noted that the definition of authoritative is "fluid" and then added the caveat that it won't simply boil down to sources that are popular on YouTube.

He added that 10,000 human reviewers at Google, so-called search quality raters who monitor search results around the world, are helping determine what will count as authoritative sources and news stories.

Alexios Mantzarlis, a Poynter Institute faculty member who helped Facebook team up with fact-checkers (including The Associated Press), said the text story snippet at the top of search results was "cautiously a good step forward."

But he worried what would happen to fake news videos that were simply recommended by YouTube's recommendation engine and would appear in feeds without being searched.

He said it would be preferable if Google used people instead of algorithms to vet fake news.

"Facebook was reluctant to go down that path two and half years ago and then they did," he said.

YouTube also said it will commit $25 million over the next several years to improving news on YouTube and tackling "emerging challenges" such as misinformation. That sum includes funding to help news organisations around the world build "sustainable video operations," such as by training staff and improving production facilities. The money would not fund video creation.

The company is also testing ways to counter conspiracy videos with generally trusted sources such as Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica.

For common conspiracy subjects, what YouTube delicately calls "well-established historical and scientific topics that have often been subject to misinformation," such as the moon landing and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Google will add information from such third parties for users who search on these topics.

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