Is aggregation the future of news?

Stan Beer
Saturday, 08 July 2006 14:40

Opinion and Analysis

An interesting and some might consider disturbing aspect of the latest iteration of the web is the burgeoning popularity of news aggregation websites. These sites contribute no original content of their own other than reader comments and often do not even have editorial oversight.

In the greatest tradition of populism, these sites often present themselves to be unbiased purveyors of news presented for the people by the people. In reality, they are nothing more than a snapshot of what a certain select segment of the web community believes to be the most pertinent news of the time. Far from being unbiased, these aggregators often reflect the skewed prejudices of the type of audience they attract.

The most stunning example of the popular news aggregation sites is Digg.com. Incredibly, according to web ranking site, Alexa.com, Digg.com has risen in popularity to rank number 115 in traffic among the world’s millions of websites. To put that ranking in perspective, the website for The Washington Post ranks number 182, Reuters ranks 227, USA Today ranks 300, Fox News ranks 319, and The Los Angeles Times ranks 559.

True, The New York Times (70), CNN (27), ABC (24) and the BBC (23) still attract more traffic than Digg.com. However, the fact is that a simple automated news aggregator with just 15 staff and no editorial team whatsoever, gets more traffic than or plays in the same league with many of the world’s largest and most respected news organisations.

No doubt the regular posters and visitors to the Digg.com site will crow about this. People power is their mantra. They will claim that this is the future of news. The masses and not biased editors will decide what news is important and what’s not. There’s only one problem. It’s rubbish. Without the real news organisations with real journalists, foreign correspondents, political columnists, news editors and yes technology writers, aggregation sites like Digg.com, Slashdot.org, News.google.com, the new Netscape.com and all the others that provide little or no news content of their own could not exist.

Some may, with justification, accuse editors and journalists of being biased. However, in reality there is no such thing as truly unbiased news. As mentioned above, the news on aggregation sites reflects the collective biases of their audiences or, in the case of google.news.com, the bias of the programming logic which selects stories. In fact, there is an argument that readers actually like a certain amount of bias. News sites and columnists with strong views and which take firm stands on issues are among the most popular.

There is nothing wrong with the principle of news aggregation. Most of the real news sites do it to a certain extent. However, pure aggregation is not the future of news. If it was, the aggregators would eventually do themselves out of a job. The future of news will remain in the hands of all the organisations, large and small, which take the time to research, gather, report and produce original content.