Weird story. I am almost confident that someone clueless mixed something very strange. Can't wait to see the clearification at the googleblog.

If not, Wikipedia is always happy to receive paychecks from anyone, including search engine companies.

Why ?

Google doesn't make any money out of Google News. Unless they're planning to have ads.

Seems counter-intuitive. Wouldn't newspapers want their news linked? Thereby driving traffic to their site where they have ads? They should be paying Google for linking their items, not the other way around.

Updated the post with Google's statement.

Are these the "partnerships" they've been talking about ?