VITAMEDIAS
Invasion of the Robo-Editors
Automated news services aren't entirely new. [...]
But none of these sites is really out to eliminate the traditional editorial function. What they have done is find electronic methods of repackaging the work of human reporters and editors. Google is trying to keep the inner workings of its robo-editor secret, but I did find out it uses more than 150 different criteria to cull its story list from those 4,000 news sources. Example: a boldface headline centered at the top of a Web page is considered more relevant than a smaller one farther down the page.