Google News highlights big stories from local news outlets
The 'Local Source' tag surfaces on-the-ground reporting during major news stories.
When a local news story breaks into a wider audience and major media outlets clamor for coverage, the local reporters and news sources with the most background and expertise can often get lost in the shuffle. To fix this error, Google News has just implemented a new "Local Source" tag designed to highlight the local news outlets reporting on national stories.
The local sources are tagged and "identified automatically by looking at where a publisher has written about in the past and comparing that to the story location," Google News Product Manager James Morehead writes. The tag is already live on news.google.com and in Google's iOS and Android apps.
In the past Google has expanded their definition of news to include everything from press releases to message boards and relevant social media posts. In total, Google News currently draws on a roster of over 75,000 news sources, and while the local section can surface nearby news relevant to a local user, the new tag is designed spotlight the locally trusted sources on a story with national or international importance.
