As to why posts of random Google+ users are appearing in Google News search results, the "chief architect of Google+", Yonatan Zunger, responded here. (Hat tip Jules Laplace for following up on this.) The G+ users' posts are intended to be understood as comments to the preceding news items, not news items themselves. Perhaps that should have been apparent, because they're indented and put in a box (I see that now, sort of) but Google provides no other warning that they are "random dude" comments.
Zunger sidesteps the specific criticism of why a G+ user with nothing to say and very few "pluses" is junking up front page search results. In the specific example (caution: vulgarity), the comment of "Russ Abbott" takes up as much screen real estate as six legacy news sources. I had suggested it was a rather over-large carrot to entice people to sign up for Google+, which hasn't exactly been setting the world ablaze vis a vis Facebook. Zunger's corporate happy speak position is that Google is "providing people a means to converse about the news" and seeks "to invite them into the discussion." Then why not embed comments from, say, the New York Times? Laplace asked. Google can't do that for "legal and product reasons," Zunger says. OK, sorry you couldn't get that worked out, but aren't you now creating the appearance of giving preferential treatment to your unwashed users at the expense of a credible news source? I'd like to ask -- but he's not going to go there.
