Facebook launches a news section — and will pay publishers
BARBARA ORTUTAY and TALI ARBEL
AP Technology Writers
Over the course of its 15 year history, Facebook has variously ignored news organizations while eating their advertising revenue, courted them for video projects it subsequently abandoned, and then largely cut their stories out of its newsfeeds .
Now it plans to pay them for news headlines — reportedly millions of dollars in some cases.
Enter the "News Tab," a new section in the Facebook mobile app that will display headlines — and nothing else — from the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, Business Insider, NBC, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times, among others. Local stories from several of the largest U.S. cities will also make the grade; headlines from smaller towns are on their way, Facebook says.
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