Getty/Michael Loccisano
Campbell Brown, Facebook's head of news partnerships
- Facebook has started to hire for a team of journalists to staff its forthcoming news section.
- The social networking giant has posted three job openings for "news curators."
- The roles call for "experienced journalists" with five-plus years' relevant experience, including a background in news and "excellent news judgment," and are listed as being full-time.
- With the emphasis on experience, Facebook is trying to distinguish this effort from its short-lived Trending section, which was staffed by contractors and was criticized for being ideologically driven.
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Facebook has started to hire for a team of journalists to staff its forthcoming news section as it tries to restore its credibility that's been dented by the spread of fake news on the platform.
The social networking giant has posted three job openings for "experienced journalists" to be "news curators." The curators will pick content from publishers covering the most important stories of the day; develop plans for news events; analyze data to inform news strategy; and work with product teams to improve user experience.
Read more: Facebook is building a news tab and keeps referencing Apple News in private talks with publishers
Here's what the roles, two based in the US and one in London, call for:
- BA/BS or equivalent experience;
- Five-plus years of relevant experience, including a background in news and record of "excellent news judgment";
- Digital news experience.
Here's what else we know:
- The team is expected to be small in size and limited in scope. It's not clear exactly how many people Facebook is looking to hire in total, but in all, it's expected to have fewer than 10 journalists on the team. That's less than a third of the 30 or so on the editorial team at Apple News, the news aggregation app that Facebook is said by publishers to be trying to emulate.
- The Facebook journalist team will be limited to picking articles for the top news section. Most of the sections in the tab will be algorithm-driven, based on factors like pages people follow and news they already share or interact with.
- The team will report to Campbell Brown, Facebook's head of news partnerships, but is meant to be independent of Facebook employees who are in charge of signing publishers up to provide their news to the section.
Facebook is still trying to get publishers like The New York Times and The Washington Post to sign on ahead of a rollout starting in late October in the US. It's been reported to be offering publishers as much as $3 million a year for three years to provide news for the section.