by Jason Snell
The human curators of Apple News
On Thursday, Jack Nicas of the New York Times posted a profile of the people who lead the Apple News editorial curation team. It’s a rare look inside some of the processes Apple uses to highlight stories in the Apple News app:
Apple has waded into the messy world of news with a service that is read regularly by roughly 90 million people. But while Google, Facebook and Twitter have come under intense scrutiny for their disproportionate — and sometimes harmful — influence over the spread of information, Apple has so far avoided controversy. One big reason is that while its Silicon Valley peers rely on machines and algorithms to pick headlines, Apple uses humans like [former New York Magazine executive editor Lauren] Kern.
According to the article, Apple has 30 former journalists spread across the world, updating the lead items in the app as time passes and stories come and go. It’s a dramatic contrast to the algorithm-based approach used by Google and Facebook.