londrum - 8:01 pm on Aug 29, 2012 (gmt 0)

There is not a single website I can think of that is so unique and its content so valuable it has enough leverage to demand money for getting listed in a search engine.

if you're just talking about the main google news page, then i agree with you. but what about all the news stories that google slots into the regular SERPs?

what if i search for something local... if google can't include stories from local and regional papers then that is going to completely mess up google's universal SERPs, because big national papers don't cover that kind of stuff.