After the 2016 presidential election, Americans learned that partisan trolls and Russian agents had used Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to spread divisive messages to voters, gaming their algorithms. The revelations prompted scrutiny of the companies’ influence over media and society. To better police their sites, the companies promised to hire more humans — and add more algorithms.
Apple said it remained convinced of the benefits of people.
“We are responsible for what’s in there,” Roger Rosner, Apple’s chief of apps and Ms. Kern’s boss, said about Apple News. “We’re not just going to let it be a total crazy land.”
Passing the Smell Test
To create its newsroom, Apple needed journalists. Starting in 2015, it poached editors from The Times, The Journal, CNN and Bleacher Report, among other publications. To lead them all, an Apple recruiter found Ms. Kern, a rising star in the New York magazine world.
Ms. Kern, born in Ardmore, Okla., to a lawyer who later became a federal judge and a former reporter for The Daily Ardmoreite, got her journalism start at an alt-weekly, the Houston Press, while attending Rice University in 1996. In 2004, she joined New York Magazine as an editor.
“You don’t generally have the whole package, but she did,” Adam Moss, New York Magazine’s editor in chief, said of Ms. Kern’s news judgment, story ideas and work ethic.
In 2010, Ms. Kern joined The New York Times Magazine as deputy editor. Four years later, Mr. Moss lured her back to New York Magazine as executive editor. In that role, she shepherded the magazine’s high-profile cover on women who accused Bill Cosby of rape and edited the stories about the chief of Fox News, Roger Ailes, and his history of sexual harassment.
Last year, Mr. Moss said, Ms. Kern came into his office with the news that Apple had approached her about a job.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/apple-news-humans-algorithms.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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