What does Facebook's plan to hire journalists mean for media industry?

NEW YORK -- Facebook's plan to hire professional journalists instead of relying solely on algorithms to deliver news is a positive step but is unlikely to shake up an embattled media industry, analysts say.

The social media giant said Tuesday it would build a small team of journalists to select the top national news of the day "to ensure we're highlighting the right stories."

It comes as the US media landscape is plagued by job losses and newspaper closures, with organizations trying to figure out how to record profits in the age of free news.

Stories will appear in a section called the "news tab," which will be separate from the traditional news feed that displays updates and content from users' friends and relatives.

"In theory I see this as a really positive development. It is something quite promising," Danna Young, a communications professor at the University of Delaware, told AFP.

Facebook's journalists will be curating stories from news sites and won't be editing headlines or writing content.

The California-based company has consistently said it does not want to be considered a media organization that makes major editorial decisions, and this announcement does little to change that, experts add.

"It's not transformative because it's not going to change necessarily the behavior of individuals who are referencing stories on their feeds," said Young.

"That's where the power comes from -- individuals you know and trust putting their tacit stamp of approval on stories by sharing them," she added.

'PERSONALIZED'

The tab will be the site's first news feature using human moderators since it shut down its ill-fated "trending topics" section last year after a scandal over allegations workers had suppressed stories about conservative issues.

Articles not deemed top news stories will still be collated using algorithms based on the user's history, such as pages they follow, publications they subscribe to and news they have already interacted with.

"Our goal with the news tab is to provide a personalized, highly relevant experience for people," Facebook head of news partnerships Campbell Brown told AFP in San Francisco Tuesday.

The news tab feature comes as Facebook embarks on a series of initiatives to boost journalism, with traditional media organizations accusing it of benefiting financially from their hard work.

Internet platforms are dominating the internet advertising space making it difficult for established news organizations to transition what were very profitable print advertisements online.

Facebook announced in January that it would invest $300 million over 3 years to support journalism, particularly local news organizations.

It has also funded fact-checking projects around the world, including one in partnership with AFP.

Facebook will reportedly pay some publishers to license news content for the tab but Mathew Ingram, who writes about digital media for the Columbia Journalism Review, doesn't expect that to trickle down to hard-up organizations that need it the most.

"The companies they are going to choose are ones already doing well I assume. It might give them a little extra cash but I don't see it driving a huge amount of traffic," he told AFP.

'DESTRUCTIVE'

Print journalism in the US is in free-fall as social media overtakes newspapers as the main news source for Americans.

Around 2,000 American newspapers closed in the past 15 years, according to the University of North Carolina, leaving millions of residents without reporters keeping track of what their local authorities are up to.

"The death of local news has such destructive effects for democracy. It's a complex issue that Facebook alone cannot fix," said Young.

The number of journalists working at US newspapers slumped by 47 percent from 2008 to 2018, according to a Pew Research Center survey released last year.

The total number of journalists in newsrooms fell by 25 percent, the group found, while consultancy firm Challenger Gray & Christmas says this is going to be the worst year for layoffs since 2009.

It's a difficult time for Stephen Groves, who recently earned a master's in journalism at New York University, to be looking for work. When he heard about Facebook's plans, he was skeptical.

"Facebook is not a journalism company and so before working for Facebook I would want to see their commitment to ethical, robust journalism," the 30-year-old told AFP.

The digital sector is also in trouble.

When Buzzfeed cut 200 jobs in January, 29-year-old Emily Tamkin was let go from a position she had held for just a few months.

"I'm personally not cheered by the fact that Facebook is swooping in and hiring journalists. If that's the silver lining then we have a very big cloud here," she told AFP.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Romney wins big in Florida primary

TAMPA -- Mitt Romney trounced main rival Newt Gingrich in Florida's Republican primary on Tuesday, putting himself in a commanding position to win the nomination to take on President Barack Obama in November, US media projections showed.

The margin of victory -- 47 percent to 31 percent with more than two-thirds of the roughly two million votes counted -- dealt a bitter blow to former House speaker Gingrich, who faces a Herculean task to turn the race around.

Gingrich, 68, shocked the party establishment when he thumped Romney, 64, in South Carolina earlier this month, but his support sank fast in Florida and Romney is now the one with all the momentum.

While the battle for the right to challenge Obama, a Democrat, in November is still in the relatively early stages, Romney's thumping win in Florida demonstrates his ability to carry a major general election battleground state.

At the end of what had been a caustic Florida campaign, the multimillionaire former Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist summed up what the victory in the large, diverse state meant to him.

"How important is Florida? Today it is the most important thing in the world to me," he told reporters in Tampa, while defending his campaign's tactics and taking a few more shots at Gingrich.

"If we are successful here it will be pretty clear that when attacked, you have to respond and you can't let charges go unanswered."

Gingrich "really can't whine about negative campaigning," Romney added.

"His comments most recently are really quite sad and I think painfully revealing about the speaker and what he is willing to say and do to try to get the nomination."

The atmosphere inside the Tampa ballroom where Romney was to give his victory speech was euphoric as supporters watched the results trickle in, punctuating each gain with chants of "Mitt, Mitt, Mitt!"

"I'm pleased, but I'm not surprised -- it is really what I expected," Barbara Jaehne, a doctor from the Florida coastal town of Sarasota, told AFP as the growing crowd waved small American flags to the beat of country music.

"I feel like Newt is very polarizing -- he is like the guy on the volleyball team who didn't get picked, he is lashing out and people don't like that."

Gingrich acknowledged he faced an uphill battle in Florida, but promised to wage a long-haul battle for the nomination, taking the fight all the way to the party convention in August when the nominee will ultimately be crowned.

"I think ultimately it's going to come down to a conservative versus Massachusetts moderate primary fight across the whole country," he said at a campaign stop in Orlando.

Gingrich has urged fellow conservative Rick Santorum, who won the Iowa caucuses but has struggled since and looked set to finish a distant third in Florida, to drop out of the race.

Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, and libertarian-leaning Texas congressman Ron Paul did little campaigning in Florida.

The economy seemed to be on the minds of many voters, including businessman Paul Jackson, who said he voted for Romney.

"I voted for him because I think he has the best chance of beating the president -- the current president. I don't agree with everything that he stands for, but I need to see a change that satisfied my selfish needs as a small business owner," he said.

Florida has been badly hit by the "Great Recession" wrought by the 2008 financial crisis -- unemployment is close to 10 percent and the state was at the epicenter of the housing bubble.

Many residents have seen their homes repossessed or have mortgages now worth more than the value of their homes.

After the South Carolina setback, Romney used his much deeper campaign war chest to unleash an unrelenting barrage of negative ads in Florida.

Hitting Gingrich on ethics, Romney also frequently mentioned the former speaker's work as a highly paid consultant for mortgage giant Freddie Mac -- which is seen by some as complicit in the housing meltdown of 2008.

Romney admitted Tuesday that the defeat in South Carolina had helped steel his spine and toughen his resolve.

In recent days, he has appeared more relaxed and self-assured.

The usually stiff candidate even broke into song on the eve of the vote, warbling several bars of the patriotic anthem "America the Beautiful" at a campaign event as the crowd sang along.

Gingrich meanwhile has vowed to fight on, accusing his rival, one of the wealthiest individuals to ever seek the presidency, of trying to spend his way to the White House.

But with seven states voting in the next four weeks, Romney's deep pockets and political organization could play a key role as the candidates battle on multiple fronts.

Romney won five of those seven states in 2008, despite losing the eventual nomination to Senator John McCain. The next contests will take place in Nevada and Maine on Saturday.

source: interaksyon.com