The Anchorage Daily News has launched a daily Alaska news aggregation feature that's a bit different than most: the engine behind this one isn't a search or aggregation algorhithm; it's a person, long-time reporter and editor Dave Hulen.Today's edition of the Alaska Newsreader draws on a number of ADN stories, of course, but also reaches far afield -- to a newspaper in Arizona for a tale of a fallen Alaska soldier (told by his mom), to North Carolina to tie in the Alaska angle on the lost-and-found boy scout, and to D.C. for a slightly snarky take on the Alaska-based "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case at SCOTUS.
Becoming your community's clearinghouse for useful and interesting news is a must. We ought to be aggregating in lots of categories -- news, of course, and opinion and probably many niches. There are lots of ways to approach doing so, and we may need to employ them all. But certainly having a talented, experienced local journalist apply his touch is a giant step forward.
I'd love to hear about other efforts and how they're working; I know Hulen and ADN Editor Pat Dougherty would love feedback, as well.
Dave Hulen, human aggregator. I know for a fact that he's been called worse.
Here's another way of looking at human aggregation: www.blognetnews.com/virginia
ReplyDeleteInstead of using a computer, we're using human editors to find the best blogs on a particular topic (in this case, state and local politics in virginia) and bring them together into an automated front page that encourages readers to go to the original sites.
We're looking for some local newspapers to work with us to do this with bloggers in their circulation area.