“Apple would probably like us to focus on the likes of the Apple Music and Beats One [sic] launches, but really it’s another announcement that should be foremost in our minds: Apple News,” Mark Wilson writes for BetaNews. “Content will not only come from media partners, but will also be curated. Apple is now a news editor, and that’s extremely dangerous.”
“Perhaps the most worrying feature of Apple News is that the stories will be handpicked and curated,” Wilson writes. “The aim is to ‘surface great content from a range of high-quality publishers,’ but what happens when there’s a big story that is critical of Apple? Will it be buried? Ignored? Tweaked?”
“What editor is going to be willing to surface stories that lay into his or her employer simply because the story is compelling? This is the danger of curated news. Bias, opinion, and politics start to creep in,” Wilson writes. “Of course, controlling the news need not be quite as simple as promoting stories that praise the company and ignoring those that are critical. Apple is a business, and it has interests. As a company it cares who is in government. It cares about the outcome of elections.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As always, readers of “news” need to consider the sources and interpret what they are are being told accordingly. The more disparate sources you can find, the better. And we don’t mean different newspaper, network, website brands that are all owned by the same conglomerate. Determining the actual ownership of your “news” sources is an investment that requires a bit of time, but it is very enlightening.
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s ambitious News app to rely on humans over algorithms for curation – June 16, 2015
Apple hiring team of journalists for News app; a ‘jaw-dropping’ development says publisher – June 15, 2015
Apple News to have human curation – and that raises issues – June 15, 2015
Flipboard CEO blasts Apple’s News app as ‘something that we actually shipped five years ago’ – June 12, 2015
Apple dumps Newsstand, takes on Facebook with Flipboard-like ‘News’ app – June 9, 2015
