Earlier this year, when Sam Zell bought the Tribune for around $8 billion dollars, he brought attention to Google News at the time, alluding to how it was ripping of traditional news media — and wondering out loud whether or not new “deals” were going to come about given this peculiar inequity, particularly if Google realized how much traditional news media realized how much it was “stealing” from traditional media.

Now, the refrain from new media watchers and bloggers at the time was “but Google doesn’t actually *make* money from Google News, you blithering idiot.”

And in fact, that kind of refrain continues to be echoed by new media watchers every time there is some kind of evolution in Google News — with the subtext being that Google News doesn’t actually *host* news, it only *links* to news. Hence, it has value in a traffic generator.

Well, it looks like that’s all about to change.

Google News will now be *hosting* and *publishing* news. Not as an original publisher, mind, but republishing agency news, including such as Press Association, Associated Press, Canadian Press and Agence France-Presse. The details, as I understand them, is part of a larger move by Google to eliminate duplicate news, where for a given news headline, there might be dozens of news sites, where all of them might have exactly the same story, because they might all use, for example, the wire story from Associated Press.

Where does this business about “hosting” come about? When the agency story doesn’t actually have an original news site, Google will host it themselves.

This, coupled with Google News Comments, is a big thing.

(Is it “Jesus Big“? I don’t know yet)

It really does show that Google is interested — in its own way, and in its own language — to being part of the content creation and distribution process. And in this way, furthermore, being a threat to any large traditional media companies who are already doing this.

Some of them may have been upset at Google News “taking away” their visitors because Google was linking to them. Now, they don’t sound so absurd, stupid, or ludicrous at all, because that is *exactly* what Google News will be doing now.

First of all, for any given piece of news, it is dropping news sites which have the same agency news — in other words, you won’t find those traditional media links any more.

Second of all, for some stories — and really, how long will it be before it becomes “most” stories? — it will be hosting the actual agency news on its own site.

Couple that with Google News comments with newsmakers dropping in for their opinion and perspective on things, and you have the recipe for something that is Big and Game Changing about Google News, if things are allowed to continue on this kind of trajectory.

The irony in all of this? Well, the Associated Press, one of these agency wires, is actually a co-operative involving thousands of smaller (and larger) newspapers, television and radio stations across the United States; it was founded on the idea that there was a way to avoid duplication and improve the efficiency in the news gathering process by pooling together some resources.

Now, it seems like rather than being a tool to help beef up (or pad) local and traditional news outlets, it is going to be an instrumental tool in helping one of traditional media’s largest and newest competitors in the online space.

In fact, its a move that may be regarded in the future as a stepping stone that allowed Google to take a very prominent stake in the “online news” portion of how people read, consume and engage with The News.

Linkage:

• Dan Gillmor’s thoughts on this irony echo mine (albeit in much more succinct way)
• Jeff Jarvis thinks that all of this should be an impetus to improve journalism, rather than think of it as a threat to journalism (can I get a hell yeah?)
• Mat Ingram says this is potentially explosive. I agree, except for the “potentially” part :)
• Donna Bogatin makes the case for this being another step in the Google World Order.

If it sounds as sad as I think it does, I worry that the ongoing debate (if it can be called a debate) about the evolution of newspapers in the face of Google has taken a turn for the pathetic. Jon Carrol, of the San Francisco Chronicle, a paper which has had to organize layoffs of a not-insignificant number of journalists, posits a solution to the Newspaper problem (you know, declining profits, massive layoffs, the diminution of a critical organ in a well functioning democratic society, etc): Google should just buy a few newspapers. Nevermind that Google has repeatedly said a number of times that it isn’t in the content business (all YouTube-like acquisitions aside). Hey, I agree with Mike Masnick on this one: it seems like the dialogue is going through different stages, with the latest stage being the begging/pleading kind.

Hey, I get it that newspapers — and journalists in general — play an important role in our society. And, yes, I get it that the public will probably be diminished by it as this shaking out of redundancies takes place. The thing is that I don’t think that its Google’s “responsibility” to do anything. I mean, Google’s responsibility is to make money by doing whatever it feels is best for Google and its stock holders. If anyone has a responsibility, it involves the people behind news organizations large, small, and in-between to try and innovate, experiment, and do whatever it takes to turn this thing around.

And as glib as it sounds, I also think of it like this. Someone, somewhere, will decode how traditional media can transition to something more meaningful and survivable than its current state. It may not be as dominant a force (even as an industry) as it once was, and I think we all have to come to terms with that. But besides that, I am convinced that whoever does figure it out first will really reap some big, big, rewards.

And perhaps that’s a better way to look at the “Google problem”, which is really part of the larger “Newspaper” problem: one of immense opportunity. I mean, sure, its trite, doesn’t it sound a little better and more productive than “Google needs to bail us out”? (And less pathetic, since, you know, its the company that most newspapers are blaming for all their ills)