> As a journalist, I have used Google News for many years to catch up on topics in which I am interested.

Interesting observation.

I noticed this a few years ago already, when Google started to kill off Google search. I can give many examples but just a simple one: Google used to cache phpBB webforum conversations. I could even read entries that were available only to people who would log in, which was convenient, because I no longer had to log in to a certain website - the google bot gathered stuff every some weeks. Then suddenly Google killed it off. It was not a huge feature, of course, but I used it.

This is just one example of many more that can be given. For some reason Google loves killing its own software: https://killedbygoogle.com/

Now with AI, things got evidently worse, quality-wise. It is like an AI battlefield - tons of software goes to the google cemetary now.

I still sometimes check on google search news, but it has also gotten worse.

Another recent change, on youtube ... I used to be able to read news entry from e. g. Jason Brant, who does biweekly reviews of awful movies, which can sometimes be entertaining. I used to be able to see the news. Then suddenly ... I am no longer able to see them. And I don't know WHY. Perhaps Jason stopped writing them - or Google changed things in youtube. I don't know. There is no transparency anymore; casual users have no chance to understand what is going on. Where to find announcements? I have no idea. Are there even any announcements?

And this is just another example. More and more examples like that can be given

"Google News has a Tools menu, where you can specify the range. You can also specify the language and location of the publication.

Bit by bit, all of this just stopped working. "

So that person has a similar experience as I have, just in other areas. Google loves killing things that used to work in the past. Another example: the dislike button. Google removed it or rather hid it (you can partially restore it via an extension). Google is abusing people here. It is ruining the UI and crippling functionality that used to work. Ublock origin is another thing that no longer works on Google chrome (well, it somewhat does; for instance it works on thorium).

Google is by far the most evil and most annoying mega-corporation. Other contenders such as Facebook or Microsoft - they fit in, but Google is annoying more people than the other greedy US corporations.

"Now, the most recent failure is that when I specify news published in, say, the past week, it just ignores that setting and gives me news published weeks, months or years in the past.

Google has abandoned Google News and let it crash into the dock."

That is also true. The big question, though, is ... why are there no replacements?

For instance, I tried qwant, but they copy/pasted the horrible Google Search UI. That's bad. And the search results also suck. DDG same problem. The whole www stack got worse. A lot of this has been caused by Google and other walled garden builders, but really the www stack got worse, quality-wise, in the last 10 years or so. This is literally the shittification of the www what we are witnessing. And now comes the age sniffing surveillance too. Mark my words: Microsoft will force everyone to show their ID on Win11 and beyond. It will come.

Google has abandoned Google News?