Water district taps Google for good coverage

Readers who type "Central Basin Municipal Water District" into Google News get a series of upbeat articles. What the average reader doesn't know is that Central Basin is paying nearly $200,000 in taxpayer money for the glowing coverage.

In a highly unusual move, the water district hired a consultant to produce promotional stories "written in the image of real news." The articles appear on a professional-looking news website called News Hawks Review. The site is indexed on Google News, carries its own advertisements and boasts an "experienced and highly knowledgeable" staff of editors and reporters. But records show it is directly affiliated with a corporate communications firm under contract with Central Basin. It's fairly common for celebrities and private-sector businesses to game search engines to generate positive buzz or better sales. But Web experts said they had never heard of a public entity employing such a strategy to increase its visibility online. They also question whether Google would continue to classify News Hawks Review as a "news channel" if it knew the articles were paid for by the district.