Most problematic, I think, would be for web-pages appear further down the list of search returns because Google’s been trying to sort them based on type rather than keyword and content.

If the distinction that indicates a “real news” site is characterized by, as a commenter said, “serious, not chatty news posts”, then even a company as replete with advanced analysis as Google is seriously jumping the gun on what can be done with today’s computational linguistics offerings — to say nothing of scaling this computing to Google’s purview!

If Google really is responding to user feedback in doing this — and given their uncharacteristically half-assed approach at blog labeling here, I wouldn’t be quick to dismiss this conclusion — then what we observe with the (blog) labeling more reflects a societal confusion as to what information can be trusted as we continue down a path of shrinking traditional journalism and burgeoning informal blogging, with the lines between these items ever blurring.

I think the distinction may be not so much the technology, but the writing style. We do serious, not chatty news posts where the writer is not front and center. On many newspaper sites, the blog sections are emulating normal blogs, where the writing is personal and opinionated.

By the way, the blog ID has been there from years back, although they may have extended it to major media blogs just recently.