Rejection Has Set Me Free
by
I applied to have this site included in Google News yesterday since I do write on occasion some straight up hard news stories, mostly revolving around labor stuff, but occasionally on some other things as well. I've had these stories published by Associated Content before, along with being quoted in labor magazines and receiving links from the WGA website, but that wasn't good enough for Google News.
Well, at least they write really nice rejection letters.
Look, I've got nothing against them and I appreciate them even being open to looking at this site, but I think their policies are retarded. This site was rejected because it only has one writer, me, and isn't an "organization" with multiple writers and editors. I don't need multiple writers and frankly I don't really need an editor either, in order to produce quality news content. I was willing to go 100% news here without opinion of any kind, spending hours editing my own stories for factual errors and proper structure (something I ought to be doing anyway.)
That Google News places the existence of an "organization" above actual story quality seems kind of stupid to me, but ultimately I'm somewhat relieved by this.
Thank you for your note. We reviewed your site and are unable to include it in Google News at this time. We currently only include articles from sources that could be considered organizations, generally characterized by multiple writers and editors, availability of organizational information, and accessible contact information. When we reviewed your site we weren't able to find this evidence of an organization.
We appreciate your willingness to provide your articles to us, and we'll log your site for future consideration.
Now I'm free again to say things like Google News' policies are retarded. Now I can do things like explain that I didn't post anything Tuesday and for most of today because I was sick, because I don't want things like that showing up on Google News and I'm sure neither do they. I can go back to being myself, which is really what I'd rather be doing anyway.
I wanted in the Google News index because my stuff is as good as anybody's and I could really use the traffic, but I can live without it and I'll probably be happier for it.
Thank you, whoever checked out my site and sent me a polite email saying that my site isn't good enough for you because of a piss poor technicality. You were honest and I appreciate that, and maybe we can get together down the road. For now, I'm happy to continue with what I'm doing, free to be me as it were.
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