Compass News wants you to be smarter than your newsfeed
by Startacus Admin
Compass News - the innovative journalism startup that'll help you navigate the world of news from the publishers you can trust.
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Consuming news is both easier and harder these days than ever before. Some outlets even put their news on paper, an idea they saw in a chip shop, we’re guessing. Print? Is that what it’s called? That doesn’t sound right. Either way, a dozen news sources assault our eyes the moment we open Facebook or Twitter, all basically saying the same thing. Some of these sources you know - the BBC, CNN, Reuters, AP, Stephen Colbert - but there are many out there that you’ve never heard of. Many people’s initial, sensible instinct is to not believe a story from a source they don’t know until they see it corroborated elsewhere, but many other people’s first instinct, Sarah, is to take it as gospel. In an age of fake news (the real kind, not...you know), this can be irritating and misleading at best, and genuinely dangerous at worst.
But what would happen if we were to only trust a single source for our news, lest we be led astray? We need a healthy variety in our news diet, told from all sides in all kinds of voices. So how can we do that and stay safe?
Compass News is a London-based journalism startup that aims to keep young people, in particular, interested in news while ensuring that said news only comes from the highest quality, trustworthy sources.
Built after talking to students across the UK about what they like, dislike, and want in their news consumption, Compass News curates news from trusted publishers all over the world. It is designed to keep people up to date with the day’s happenings without taking too much of their time. With this in mind, the app pushes out 6 of the biggest news stories, twice a day, and includes a bite sized summary. The ‘Story So Far’ function of the app gives readers background information for the major stories in under 100 words so they will always be up to speed.
The editors who curate the stories bring experience from the likes of the BBC, Wired, and the Financial Times. As 
well as these editors, they have been training an AI editor to watch what these human editors do, observe how they make their editorial decisions, and copy.
By teaching it in this way, rather than programming it with a set of rules and conditions, they hope to come out the other end with an AI editor that can reliably work by itself while the humans are doing human things, like sleeping.
Compass News gathered up a nice $1m in funding recently, which they are using to expand into the US. A trustworthy source of news from less mainstream sources is sorely needed, and one that aims particularly to keep young people engaged in the world around them will continue to make the headlines, we think.
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"Be smarter than your newsfeed" thanks to this innovative journalism startup...
Published on: 15th April 2018
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