In this ever-automated world of ours, here’s a twist: Apple is actually seeking humans to work on its Apple News app.
The job announcement looking for editors is on Apple’s site now, seeking “passionate, knowledgeable editors to help identify and deliver the best in breaking national, global, and local news. These editors will help News users find the best and most timely coverage of major news events, while also managing select categories based on their areas of professional expertise.”
More importantly, the ad wants journalists who have “great instincts for breaking news, but be equally able to recognize original, compelling stories unlikely to be identified by algorithms.”
The Apple News app, announced during WWDC, is set to launch later this year with iOS 9. As the Guardian points out, “By hiring editors, Apple appears to be taking a different path to direct competitors like Flipboard, as well as Facebook – which recently announced plans to start hosting news articles by publisher partners – which focus more on algorithms to decide what stories people see in their feeds.”
In addition to the whole human vs. machine element here, the Guardian questions Apple’s motivation behind the move to kick it old school and the potential for a “chilling effect,” or Apple and its content partners simply choosing not to run stories that are critical of the company.
Whether publishers like it or not, tech companies are increasingly going to enter the publishing game. After all, information is power. With Amazon’s Jeff Bezos’ owned Washington Post, Facebook’s new deal with several major media outlets, including the New York Times, and so forth, we might as well get used to getting our news through an app.
That said, it’s nice to see Apple looking to real journalists to help power its news network.
