On one hand, it's poor journalism. On the other hand, it's just part of the PR clout of Google that they can get old news touted as technical wonders or have these breakthroughs attributed to them rather than those actually doing the work. (Whether they actively try to or not.)
Apple have similar PR wizardry with scores of journalists swooning over the most elementary changes.
The rise of Internet 'journalism' has put pressure on more traditional outlets to publish information as quickly as possible. In many cases, this leads to stories that are little more than regurgitations of press releases. We see it in politics as well as general business news but ever more so in 'tech' news.
In some ways, it can be seen as 'you get what you pay for'. People are not buying newspapers and don't want to pay for online subscriptions so newspapers don't have the money to hire as many journalists or do as much research or investigation. Whatever fills the paper quickest wins. On the other hand, we put the chicken before the egg and we can see that the move to getting our news from other sources is a reaction to the decrease in quality of the reporting.
The real problem is that companies and political parties now have an expectation that their words will be repeated verbatim and their messages broadcast to the public without question or criticism. Perhaps less so in the US where there is a greater breadth of news outlets, but certainly in Australia it is a toxic, closed, society of journalists willing to tow the line, and thus continue to receive the table scraps from the spin doctors while those willing to dig deeper and call out the bullshit are forever on the outer.
It's one thing the AFL (for example) have been called out on as they only give stories and interviews to those journalists willing to tell the AFL's version of events. This came out strongly in the recent (and on-going) doping saga as many journalists came forward saying that they were cut-off when they criticised the AFL or ran pieces that contradicted the official story.
Rant much . . .
Biting the hand that feeds IT
