The New York Times company has made an agreement with “real time local newswire” Fwix to use content it has aggregated from “local news, blogs and citizen journalism” across the US.
According to the press release, the “umbrella agreement enables the distribution of Fwix’s technology and hyper-local content across any of The New York Times Company’s Regional Media Group properties, as well as other business units such as Boston.com and NYTimes.com”.
Fwix is a technology-driven company which “filters and selects” stories which are locally relevant.
The FT makes much of the story today, saying it is a way of tackling the shortfall in local news funding.
I’m no so sure. Fwix certainly looks like a handy search tool and a way of automating some of the aggregation that many journalists working online spend much of their time doing nowadays.
But original, quality journalism is what drives up readership and underpins editorial value, and no amount of clever algorithms can make up for providing that.
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
