Washington Post, New York Times Team With Google For “Living Stories”

The Washington Post and New York Times have enlisted the help of Google to take the “first step toward changing the way news is consumed online:” Living Stories. After being blamed endlessly for the struggles of newspapers, Google is again playing repentant, “touting it as their contribution to the beleaguered newspaper business,” according to Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz.

From Kurtz’s report:

The idea is to simplify things for readers by grouping developing stories about a hot topic — say, Tiger Woods — on a single Web page, with updates automatically highlighted at the top of the screen.

Basically, it’s not unlike the Times Topics pages (or Salon’s), but pre-optimized for search engines instead of buried on already overcrowded websites. It’s all about the Google hits, baby:

By grouping the stories day after day under one Web address, the Times and Post could boost their Google rankings, which would tend to push those pages toward the top of the list when people search for that subject. After the Tuesday launch, the story pages will reside at Google Labs for an experimental period of two to three months, and revert to the papers’ own Web sites if all goes well.

To start, the Post‘s pages are on health-care reform, D.C. schools and the Redskins, while the Times is focusing on Afghanistan, executive compensation, global warming, swine flu and health care. Topical!

But don’t get your hopes up. Kurtz tempers expectations right up top, admitting it’s a “new online tool that, well, isn’t exactly going to revolutionize journalism.” Way to sell it, big guy! Read the rest here.