Online news - with or without humans?
Sarah Chapman: “Welcome to the era of the algorithm as editor…”
The New York Times reported yesterday that Yahoo is to invert the traditional news model, in which editors decide what gets covered, by using popular search terms to guide their reporting on national affairs, politics and the media.
And as Yahoo! move away from the traditional editorial news model, Google have rolled editorial picks into their news service which was always “traditionally” built by algorithm. Maybe an attempt to improve how Google News handles zero day stories, and if that can be achieved, making it more of a news source, rather than a news aggregator.
Before editorial
After editorial
Is there convergence on a middle ground in online news between production and aggregation, and if so, what will that look like?
