Facebook To Expand Tool For Reducing News Deserts
FACEBOOK – Facebook recently aimed to handle news deserts with the second big expansion of a tool that lets people discover more local news.
According to Inquirer, the company disclosed that they still have a lot to learn. The tool they expanded is the “Today In” service which they deployed to about 6,000 cities and towns in the United States.
“Today In”, which was launched in 2018, allows social media users to explore into local information, which also includes news articles, missing person alerts, road closures, and more. The social media platform clusters posts from the official pages for news organizations, schools, government agencies and community groups.
The tool, when turned on, adds local updates to the user’s usual news feed. As for areas with insufficient local news, the platform will be able to add news related from the surrounding areas.
As per the report, in the United States, about 1,800 newspaper industries have closed over the past 15 years, which is stated in a study from the University of North Carolina.
Employment declined to 45% as they struggle with a broken business model due to the success of internet companies, which includes Facebook.
The head of global news partnerships of the socmed platform Campbell Brown said that it has a responsibility to advocate journalism, as well as recognizing that the media industry has been declining for a very long time.
Brown, a former NBC and CNN host and new anchor, said that local reporting is still the most vital form of journalism, further saying that there is no silver bullet and they aim to aid publishers deal with challenges in the local market.
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