I tried a search for Barack Obama and got several news quotes where the system works despite the text only giving a mild clue like "he said".

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&tab=wn&qsid=tPjE5CDNzMgJ

shows stuff like
"I'll be honest with you, we've now had 21," he said.

and

He amplified his earlier remarks, saying that "what is absolutely true is that people don't feel like they are being listened to."

Those quotes don't include Obama's name.

P.S. I think this feature is wicked cool, because it lets you search over news information in a new way..

Thanks, I'll add an update to the post. I was looking for the word "convinced" which was in one of Marissa's quotes on the quotes page for her, it was of a "she said" type but it wasn't found. But perhaps that's due to some other issue, because right now I don't even get any results for a News-wide search for [convinced marissa mayer] even though the text "I myself wasn't convinced" is here: http://news.smh.com.au/googles-search-unveils-advertising-boom/20080411-25ey.html

Just curious about Matt's example, in my resulting page the search box is empty and URL void of keywords.

Was the actual query "Barack Obama"?

Great new feature by the way and yes it is "wicked cool"!

Same thing for John Edwards

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=John+Edwards

Sohil

Not hear, I'm seeing a different page.

Sohil

Ahh... I see what you are saying, the actual landing page for your Edwards example for comparison to Matt's example would be:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&qsid=mBgtuJEd8nQJ

In my opinion, including a query term in the URL would help users more than the current quid= parameter.

Does it only work with names? It could be useful to find quotes about certain terms or subjects.

The attributions are sometimes wrong.
Searching for "Paul McCartney" includes the following result:

'"I love England but everything that has happened makes me realise I'll be better off in the States," she added.
Apr 16, 2008 entertainment.oneindia.in (20 occurences)'

http://www.google.com/news?server=ipsearch&num=100&gl=us&search=News&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&qsid=E_Cbo8s7-msJ

Note the gender is wrong. This is not something Paul said.
The quote is taken from a story about Heather Mills (Paul's former wife).
The word "McCartney" does not occur in the body of the story.

http://entertainment.oneindia.in/music/international/2008/heather-mills-settling-usa-160408.html

Google titled their result page "Quotes by Paul McCartney".
Maybe they should title it "Quotes related to Paul McCartney".

I have found other similar examples.

After a quote Google lists a number of occurences.
What is that counting?

The number of news articles that include that quote, obviously:
http://www.google.com/news?server=ipsearch&num=100&gl=us&search=News&hl=en&q=I+love+England+but+everything+that+has+happened+makes+me+realise+I%27ll+be+better+off+in+the+States,&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d