Google News adds local source tag to expandable news box to promote major local news stories

Google announced on the Google News blog that they have added a “Local Source” tag to surface local coverage of major stories.

The tagging aspect is automated. Google said they automatically identify the “Local Source” tag of a story based on “looking at where a publisher has written about in the past and comparing that to the story location.” This “Local Source” tag is now live across all Google News editions, and when you expand a story, it shows you more local stories from local publications.

Here is a screen shot provided by Google:

There is more technical help for the searcher on how to use this feature over here:

A Google News story box is a group of articles about the same news event. These boxes reflect how Google News organizes various articles and multimedia items for a given story. Here are some tips for using this feature and easily navigating between many different perspectives on one story or topic.

Clicking on the box will expand it, showing you more articles for that story. We may also show you one of several types of article that we think are relevant, for example:

Local Source: an article from a source local to the story.