Facebook is hiring journalists for ita News Tab initiative which is the social media giant dip into publishing.
The News Tab will be a section on the Facebook app that will have recent and relevant stories for readers curated by editors and not just algorithms.
“In new Facebook effort, humans will help curate your news stories”
After all the drama of Trending Stories, the humans are making a comeback. https://t.co/DfimbUE4Fp pic.twitter.com/TvqAI6Xh9y
— Renee DiResta (@noUpside) August 20, 2019
Facebook will hire seasoned journos(expected to be fewer than 10) from various news outlets for the editorial roles to be posted to avoid the issues that Trending Topics had which Facebook killed off. Reportedly, Facebook may pay large sums of money to some publishing partners for access to their content.
It will be interesting how this pans out as Facebook’s previous partnerships with news outlets hurt the latter.
Having the same feeling I have when publication that laid off a ton of people just hires for the same positions six months later https://t.co/PXAv2kzUCi
— Tonya Riley (@TonyaJoRiley) August 20, 2019
wait didn't they basically do this already and then sack them all https://t.co/GUw5UPbNN8
— Alan White (@aljwhite) August 20, 2019
Journos aired their opinions regarding this recent announcement.
stop me if you've heard this one before https://t.co/8Z6Hi0nfWR pic.twitter.com/j9dxgpMAQU
— erin mccann | (@mccanner) August 20, 2019
In New Facebook Effort, Facebook Does The Same Old Shit Again https://t.co/3AbmAx9cg1
— Owen Williams ⚡ (@ow) August 20, 2019
News Tab will exist outside of the News Feed and most of the news stories will be algorithmically sorted and ranked.
Facebook will begin testing News Tab for 200, 000 users in October and roll out to the rest of the U.S. early 2020.
What they are saying:
Facebook’s head of news partnerships, Campbell Brown: Our goal with the News tab is to provide a personalized, highly relevant experience. The majority of stories people will see will appear in the tab via algorithmic selection.
Facebook executive to Axios: “We learned a lot from Trending. This is a completely different product.”
