Just in case you were wondering, sites in the Google News index do not get any special ranking boost in the organic Google results. Google's John Mueller said they are not seen as any more authoritative just because they are included in Google News. John said the organic search results do not use that as a signal.
Of course, Google News sites might seem like they come up a lot because more often than not, they are more authoritative anyway. But Google doesn't use it as a ranking signal.
John answered this question in a Google+ hangout from last week at the 7:50 minute mark:
KREASON GOVENDER: Hi, John. Just a quick follow up question on that. In terms of Google News sites, how authoritative are those sites? Are they always seen as authoritative sites?JOHN MUELLER: Sites that are in the Google News index, you mean?
KREASON GOVENDER: Yes.
JOHN MUELLER: Not always. So that's not something where we would take the status within Google News as a ranking factor for web search. That's something that we do separately.
Here is the video embed at the start time:
Forum discussion at Google+.
