# How Google Assistant delivers news and podcasts

Trustworthy and timely information empowers people to better understand the
world around them and make educated decisions. Google aims to make it easier to
stay informed by using technology to organize what journalists are reporting
about current issues and events. We don't have an editorial point of view.
Instead, Google Assistant is designed to connect you with a broad array of
information and perspectives to help you develop your own point of view and make
informed decisions.

When you ask Google Assistant for news or podcasts about a specific topic, such
as "Hey Google, show me news about sports" or "Hey Google, play a comedy
podcast," Assistant ranks responses based on the words in your request, the
freshness of the content, and if it is from nearby. Assistant may also rank some
responses higher based on the device you are using. For example, if you ask for
news on a smart display, video news stories may be ranked higher to take
advantage of that device's capabilities. If you ask for news or podcasts from a
specific provider, such as an audio streaming service that offers news podcasts,
Assistant lets the service provider decide what news or podcast to play.

If you ask Google Assistant for news or podcasts in general, such as asking,
"Hey Google, what's the news?" or "Hey Google, play a podcast," how Assistant
responds depends on your settings. With news, Assistant responds with a set of
top items from a set of news providers selected in your [Assistant news
settings](https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/7382255) under News
briefings by default. In some countries, default news providers may be set based
on Google's partnerships in order to bring you relevant, authoritative news in
that country. You can always change the default news providers in Assistant
settings. When you ask for podcasts, if more than one provider is available,
Assistant asks you to select your preferred podcast service, such as Google
Podcasts, so you can access your favorite podcasts on the provider you prefer.
Assistant remembers this choice for future requests, and you can change this
selection in your Assistant settings for podcasts.

Google works with news and podcast providers around the world to bring you
audio, video and web news content through Google Assistant. News and podcast
providers can reach a wider audience at no cost to them by sharing their content
with Assistant through the following channels:

- Sharing content through [feeds](https://developers.google.com/news/assistant), [Speakable](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/speakable) and our [publisher
  center](https://publishercenter.google.com/publications).
- Submitting YouTube video content to Google News using the [publisher
  center](https://support.google.com/news/publisher-center/answer/9606950).
- Listing podcasts through supported [indexing
  services](https://support.google.com/podcast-publishers/answer/9890138).
- Allowing content to be discovered through Google's web crawling. Publishers can also choose to [block
  access](https://support.google.com/news/publisher-center/answer/9605477) to content discovered this way.

All news providers must comply with our [news content
policies](https://developers.google.com/news/assistant/policies). In general, Google does not pay news
providers for their content. However, in some cases Google licenses content from
providers in order to bring you relevant, authoritative news content. We don't
rank licensed news items higher than other similar news content. For more
information about how Google brings news content to you through Google Assistant
and other Google services, see [How News
Works](https://newsinitiative.withgoogle.com/hownewsworks/).