Facebook begins to test local news feature called Today In across six US cities, combining human curation and AI to surface news, events, and announcements
Facebook is vetting local publishers that appear in this section. — Facebook wants to make it easier for people to find local news from vetted sources. Tweets: @caseynewton , @hannahkuchler , and @kurtwagner8 See also Mediagazer Tweets: Casey Newton / @caseynewton : Facebook promoting high-quality local news in the feed is a good thing. I hope this makes it out of hamburger-button hell —> http://twitter.com/... Hannah Kuchler / @hannahkuchler : Facebook launches local news curation, pulling in information from local publishers and authorities. https://www.recode.net/... Kurt Wagner / @kurtwagner8 : FB is trying to make it easier for people to find local news. The company says it will vet publishers who appear in this new section, which should (theoretically) cut down on disinformation https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
This six-city test is the opening move in Facebook's 2018 push to rebuild trust in news on the platform after years of criticism over misinformation. The company is not just aggregating — it vets every local publisher that appears in Today In, pairing human curation with AI ranking for news, events, and civic announcements.
The arc that follows shows the bet paying off operationally: within the year Facebook expanded Today In to a 400-city rollout and separately began surfacing more local stories in the main feed by identifying publishers through tight-geography click patterns (local stories in News Feed), before folding local into one of four categories in the dedicated Facebook News tab tested in late 2019.
First-order effects
- Local publishers in the six test cities gain a new, vetted distribution surface inside the Facebook app, but only if they pass Facebook's publisher review — acceptance becomes a de facto credential.
- Residents in those cities get a single section combining news, events, and official announcements, shifting some local discovery from publishers' own pages and sites into a Facebook-controlled surface.
Second-order effects
- Publishers outside the test footprint now have an incentive to optimize for Facebook's vetting criteria and geographic click signals, since inclusion in Today In and the local News Feed treatment becomes a traffic lever they don't fully control.
- Rival platforms and local aggregators face pressure to match the vetted-local format, because Facebook's curation layer sets user expectations that raw algorithmic feeds alone can't meet.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Facebook consolidates gatekeeping over local news: editorial judgment about which outlets are legitimate migrates from communities and publishers to a platform's vetting process, making platform policy a structural determinant of local media viability.
The trend: Platforms are moving from open-feed news distribution toward curated, vetted news surfaces, with Facebook's Today In-to-Facebook News progression as the template.