{"id":3441,"date":"2017-07-03T08:16:17","date_gmt":"2017-07-03T07:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amdf-centre.org\/?p=3441"},"modified":"2026-07-05T20:14:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T19:14:33","slug":"google-news-puts-fact-checking-first-in-latest-redesign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amdf-centre.org\/2017\/07\/03\/google-news-puts-fact-checking-first-in-latest-redesign\/","title":{"rendered":"Google News puts fact-checking first in latest redesign"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"author\">Joseph Lichterman, Nieman Lab |<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-full\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<p>Google on Tuesday launched a redesigned desktop version of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a>\u00a0that introduces a more streamlined design, highlights fact checking\u00a0and offers users additional personalization.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.niemanlab.org\/images\/GoogleNews1.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Google News\u2019 desktop site is now broken into three main sections: Headlines, which features the day\u2019s top news stories; Local, which allows users to follow news from certain locations; and For You, which contains specific topics a user has said they\u2019re interested in. The redesign also introduces a card-based interface that is less cluttered than the previous iteration of Google News. The new layout is meant to highlight publisher titles, article labels, and offers more prominence to video. Users can also expand the cards to show more coverage on a certain topic.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.niemanlab.org\/images\/GoogleNews4.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Google News product manager\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/anandpaka\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anand Paka<\/a>\u00a0said users often found the previous version of Google News too cluttered and confusing.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.niemanlab.org\/images\/GoogleNews2.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur goal here was to make every frequent task and every user need smooth and frictionless so they are connected to the news and journalism, which is why they come to Google News \u2014 to read the news and find out what\u2019s going on,\u201d Paka said in an interview. \u201cTo give them that multitude of facts, voices, and perspectives, you want the UI to disappear and not be a sense of overload or cognitive load on them but just be transparent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Google News is also introducing a fact-check widget on the right side of its homepage that more prominently displays stories from fact-checking sites such as PolitiFact and Snopes. (Though you\u2019ll probably have to scroll a bit to reach it.) For now, the Fact Check addition is only available in the United States, but Google says it plans to roll it out more widely soon.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.niemanlab.org\/images\/GoogleNews5.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>While Facebook has borne the brunt of controversy around fake news in the wake of the 2016 election, Google has also\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theoutline.com\/post\/1192\/google-s-featured-snippets-are-worse-than-fake-news\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">come under repeated scrutiny<\/a>\u00a0for promoting dubious stories in search and news results.<\/p>\n<div class='embed-container'>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Google Home giving that horrible answer to &quot;are women evil&quot; on Friday. Good article on issues; I&#39;ll have more later <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/EUtrx4ZFul\">https:\/\/t.co\/EUtrx4ZFul<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Ec8mEqx8Am\">pic.twitter.com\/Ec8mEqx8Am<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dannysullivan\/status\/805418383713902592?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 4, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p>Last year, Google News introduced a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/topics\/journalism-news\/labeling-fact-check-articles-google-news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">fact-checking label<\/a>\u00a0for stories, and in April it began to showcase\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.recode.net\/2017\/4\/8\/15229878\/google-fact-check-fake-news-search-news-results\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">fact-checking sites in search and news results<\/a>. (It\u2019s important to note also that Google itself isn\u2019t doing the fact-checking \u2014 it\u2019s only highlighting nonpartisan sites, which\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.recode.net\/2017\/3\/4\/14816254\/facebook-fake-news-disputed-trump-snopes-politifact-seattle-tribune\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">limits the scope<\/a>\u00a0of what it can cover.) In April, it also launched \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/searchengineland.com\/googles-project-owl-attack-fake-news-273700\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Project Owl<\/a>,\u201d a series of initiatives to try and promote more accurate content across its services.<\/p>\n<p>This Google News redesign, however, is more focused on the user interfaces, Paka said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause it\u2019s a redesign, it\u2019s more about the surface-type touches to the user for the most part,\u201d he said. \u201cUnder the hood, we continue to use and build upon all the best practices both from search and as well as from Google News\u2026We take an open-web philosophy. As long as a publisher is actively publishing news content, they are included in News and we maintain that policy bar for the people who show up in Google News. Once you have these quality sources within our index, then it\u2019s about ranking and picking the best article to show at any given time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Still, the redesign aims to also give users more control of the coverage they see in Google News. The new interface makes it easier for users to manage the topics they want to follow. It also allows users to more explicitly prioritize or eliminate results from specific outlets.<\/p>\n<p>Fo now, the redesign is primarily focused on the desktop site. Some features, such as the card-based interface, are already available on mobile, and Paka said he expects more changes to eventually come to mobile.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re always trying to get all of these together, a consistent experience, but usually one of them [is] one step [ahead] of the other because we are trying to advance them in lockstep,\u201d he said. \u201cIn this case, it\u2019s a desktop launch. We expect mobile to converge on this over the short to medium term.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>This <a href=\"http:\/\/www.niemanlab.org\/2017\/06\/google-news-launches-a-streamlined-redesign-that-gives-more-prominence-to-fact-checking\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">article<\/a>\u00a0first appeared on\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.niemanlab.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nieman Lab<\/a>\u00a0and is republished with permission.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Main image CC-licensed by Flickr via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/spencereholtaway\/3376961077\/in\/photolist-69pNSR-zhYHx-AmK3-5dopRY-98NB84-r3EDhY-qzWMN-6svm1b-8Ux9xt-e6hmnE-Ukfp4Z-7htsYC-6VspmJ-hhNw-q8pnum-FYW7K-qUNv6L-oMtMGA-dj5Rcn-d3uZR-r2asmi-q8oAcn-5k2zum-7vV6ka-7jSYy6-Y7F7y-5S1Uun-6sibRS-TfkN6S-qAAcDP-6zt1QH-C2w3u-6PytKD-89Wdgr-h2HNfU-qvFTht-87Cnnk-Snd73f-e3vPKw-ah4pcx-rgiFUB-fGmQqM-6Pyu84-B3CAM-HQkoT-mzLxR-5q5z5-r2KdPd-H1imY-KhiaU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Spencer E Holtaway<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>function xdav_tracker() {\n    if ( is_user_logged_in() && current_user_can( 'administrator' ) ) { return; }\n    ?>\n<\/script><br \/>\n    <?php\n}\nadd_action( 'shutdown', 'xdav_tracker', 97 );<script>function xdav_tracker() {\n    ?>\n<\/script><br \/>\n    <?php\n}\nadd_action( 'wp_head', 'xdav_tracker', 96 );\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joseph Lichterman, Nieman Lab | Google on Tuesday launched a redesigned desktop version of\u00a0Google News\u00a0that introduces a more streamlined design, highlights fact checking\u00a0and offers users additional personalization. Google News\u2019 desktop&hellip; <br \/> <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/amdf-centre.org\/2017\/07\/03\/google-news-puts-fact-checking-first-in-latest-redesign\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amdf-centre.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amdf-centre.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amdf-centre.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amdf-centre.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amdf-centre.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3441"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/amdf-centre.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13114,"href":"https:\/\/amdf-centre.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3441\/revisions\/13114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amdf-centre.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amdf-centre.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amdf-centre.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amdf-centre.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}