How Do I Love Thee Internet, Let Me Google the Ways

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

How many times has this happened to you? Your daily newspaper does a whack job on you, your client or your boss and all you can do is write a strongly worded letter to the editor that may or may not get published in a timely fashion. While you wait, you may end up cursing out every reporter that calls afterward trying to do a match or pick-up, but that is so last century. 

Ordinarily, you would put together some bullet points or documents to rebut any charges, but who sees that stuff? Reporters, and bloggers now, but not the consumer or voter who just stared to read the story in question. You want some rapid response results double ASAP, if not sooner. 

So fear not, fellow flaks, Google News has come to our collective rescues once again by announcing an exciting new feature:

"Starting this week, we'll be displaying reader comments on stories in Google News, but with a bit of a twist...

We'll be trying out a mechanism for publishing comments from a special subset of readers: those people or organizations who were actual participants in the story in question. Our long-term vision is that any participant will be able to send in their comments, and we'll show them next to the articles about the story. Comments will be published in full, without any edits, but marked as 'comments' so readers know it's the individual's perspective, rather than part of a journalist's report."

Don’t get me wrong, that paper will still get a strongly worded letter to the editor, but the same response could be posted several hours, even days earlier. In a 24-hour news cycle, every minute count.

According to the AP, this comment process will work by a Google employee verifying the authenticity of the e-mailed response. "Some methods include independently tracking down the subject's contact information and calling that person directly, or checking the author's e-mail address and phone number against information on a company or organization Web site."

Thanks to Google News, even rapid response is bypassing the traditional media filter.