Internal Facebook Memo Reveals Guidelines for Showcasing News

Facebook has said repeatedly that it isn’t in the journalism business, but a team of human editors responsible for an upcoming news initiative by the company will exercise significant control over the presentation of top stories, including judging them over their use of anonymous sources, according to internal guidelines seen by The Information.   

While Facebook’s plans to hire human editors for an upcoming news tab have been previously reported, the guidelines, which Facebook recently shared with employees in an internal memo, offer the first insight into how the team will make decisions that could affect the news stories millions of people see. One person who has seen a version of the tab being tested by Facebook employees said it featured stories from The Wall Street Journal, ABC News, CBS News, National Geographic, BBC, The Huffington Post, and The Hill, though some of those publishers don’t appear to have officially struck agreements with Facebook yet.