Apple News’ radical approach: human editors

App eschews reliance on algorithms to pick which stories to use.

Many of Apple’s employees moved into a glistening new $5 billion glass headquarters in Cupertino, California, this year. A mile west, at Apple’s old campus on 1 Infinite Loop, a project antithetical to Silicon Valley’s ethos is now underway.

In a quiet corner of the third floor, Apple is building a newsroom of sorts. About a dozen former journalists have filled a few nondescript offices to do what many other tech companies have for years left to software: selecting the news that tens of millions of people will read.

One morning in late August, Apple News’ editor-in-chief, Lauren Kern, huddled with a deputy to discuss the five stories to feature atop the company’s 3-year- old news app, which comes preinstalled on every iPhone in the United States, Britain and Australia.

National news sites were lead- ing that day with articles that the Justice Department had backed an affirmative-action lawsuit against Harvard University — a good proxy that the story mattered, said Kern’s deputy, a former editor for The New York Times whom Apple requested not be named for privacy reasons. He and Kern quickly agreed that it was the day’s top news, and after reading through a few versions, selected The Washington Post’s story, saying it provided the most context and explanation of why the news mattered.

Another story drawing wide coverage: racial barbs on the first day of the Florida governor’s race. Kern and her deputy said they wanted a piece that covered the topic thoughtfully because race is a sensitive subject. They selected a nuanced Miami Her-

ald piece that examined the comments, their context and the debate about them.

They later picked a CBS News video of John McCain’s memorial service, an SB Nation story on Serena and Venus Williams facing off in the U.S. Open, and a Bloomberg feature on 20-hour flights. Kern said her team aimed to mix the day’s top stories with lighter features and sometimes longer investigations, much like the front page of a newspaper. They largely chose from a list of contenders compiled that morning by three editors in New York who pored over the home pages and mobile alerts of national news sites, as well as dozens of pitches from publications.

“We put so much care and thought into our curation,” said Kern, 43, a former executive editor of New York magazine. “It’s seen by a lot of people, and we take that responsibility really seriously.”

Apple has waded into the messy world of news with a service that is read regularly by roughly 90 million people. But while Google, Facebook and Twitter have come under intense scrutiny for their disproportionate — and sometimes harmful — influence over the spread of information, Apple has so far avoided controversy. on who is picking the stories One big reason is that while for Apple News and how its peers rely on machines those people avoid bias. and algorithms to pick headFor the first time recently lines, Apple uses humans — and after extensive nego- like Kern. tiations on the terms of the

The former journalist interviews — Apple agreed has quietly become one of to let a Times reporter in on the most powerful figures how it operates Apple News. in English-language media. There are ambitious plans The stories she and her dep- for the product. Apple lets uties select for Apple News publishers run ads in its app regularly receive more than and it helps some sign up 1 million visits each. new subscribers, taking a

Their work has compli- 30 percent cut of the reve- cated the debate about nue. Soon, the company aims whether internet giants are to bundle access to dozens media or technology compa- of magazines in its app for nies. Google, Facebook and a flat monthly fee, sort of Twitter have long insisted like Netflix for news, accordthey are tech entities and not arbiters of the truth. The chief executive of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and others have bet heavily on artificial intelligence to help them sort through false news and fact-based information. Yet Apple has unabashedly gone the other direction with its human-led approach, showing that a more media-like sensibility may be able to coexist within a technology company.

Apple’s strategy is risky. While the company has long used people to curate its App Store, the news is far more contentious. The famously secretive company has also provided little transparency ing to people familiar with the plans, who declined to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. Apple also hopes to package access to a few daily-news publications, like The Times, The Post and The Wall Street Journal, into the app, the people said.

Apple’s executives grandly proclaim that they want to help save journalism. “There is this deep understanding that a thriving free press is critical for an informed public, and an informed public is critical for a functioning democracy, and that Apple News can play a part in that,” Kern said.

But there are early signs that Apple is not the indus- try’s savior. Many publish- ers have made little on ads in Apple News, and Apple’s 30 percent cut of subscriptions it helps sell does not help. Having experienced Google’s and Facebook’s disruption of their indus-

THE NEW YORK TIMES Former magazine journalist Lauren Kern, editor in chief of Apple News, has quietly become one of the most powerful figures in English-language media. Apple has avoided criticism of bias by using human beings to select the news that it distributes.

JUSTIN KANEPS/THE NEW YORK TIMES In late 2015, Apple released a free news app to match users with publications they liked. People selected their interests and favorite publications, and the app returned a feed of relevant stories. The announcement attracted little fanfare. Three months later, Apple announced an unusual new feature: humans would pick the app’s top stories, not algorithms. Lauren Kern, a former executive editor of New York magazine, currently is the editor in chief of Apple News.