Tech giant Google has launched new tools and features for both readers and reporters designed to aid local news organisations.
The headline feature is a carousel that shows local news in response to search queries, launching around the world in all languages.
Google initially launched the feature to provide local information for Covid searches, but it has now been expanded to other topics like sports, local government and more, reports The Verge.
Google said it is been tweaking its systems so that authoritative, relevant local news sources appear more often next to national publications in Top Stories and other general news features.
“This improvement ensures people will see authoritative local stories when they’re searching for news, helping both the brand and the content of news publishers reach more people,” Google said.
It is also able to drill down into narrow subtopics related to local news, like high school football. Combined with its location services (provided you have those enabled), you should get more relevant results.
“For example, if you are in Detroit and search for football, we will now show you results for local high school and college teams, rather than just showing you results for, say, the professional team,” Google said.
It will also surface tweets from news organisations along with “authoritative sources and authors”.
Alongside the new consumer features, Google announced new data tools for reporters.
First up is the Census Mapper project, a map that can be embedded in stories to display Census data at the national, state and county level. It was produced as part of the 2020 Census Co-op, supported by the Google News Initiative.
It can show Census data at a local level, showing how populations have shifted over time. Google is also improving its Common Knowledge Project, a visual journalism project that allows reporters to explore local data.
