Speaking at the IJ-7 'Innovation Journalism' conference at Stanford University last week, Krishna Bharat said there is a need to guard against readers "only hearing what they want to".
But he also said that online news was "overwhelming" and that the future for Google News lies in developing an effective filter.
"There is an appetite for some subjects more than others and I think there is an opportunity to focus partly on topics the reader cares about and engage in a dialogue where you find out more about reader preferences," he said in an on-stage conversation with David Nordfors, executive director of Stanford's Center for Innovation & Communication.
He suggested one way to personalise the user experience whilst ensuring variety would be through social media, ensuring both the interests of friends and the larger community are included.
"I think people care about what other people are interested in, most importantly in their social circle (...) but beyond that the world at large. I think there is an influential, intellectual component to our audience that cares very much about getting the hard news of the day. I don't think there is a risk of us personalising so much that we keep the hard news out the picture. We have an editorial responsibility not to do that."
"Our readers will make sure we don't make that mistake," he added.
Bharat assured the conference that finding the balance between personalised news and ensuring diversity in audience consumption remained at the forefront of future plans.
"Once we discover, in the Google News context, that the reader has a preference for certain sources, I think we serve them well by providing them with other sources as well, which they can fall back on," he said.
View the full discussion here.
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