Lauren Kern, executive editor at New York Magazine, has been named as the first editor-in-chief of Apple News, reports Politico. She’s of New York magazine’s most high-ranking editors and a former deputy editor at The New York Times Magazine.
“It’s unclear what exactly the role will entail, and Kern declined to comment. But at the very least, it would seem to suggest that Apple has ambitions for its two-year-old aggregation app, which replaced the Apple Newsstand in 2015 but hasn’t really gained traction in a big way,” says Politico.
Apple News isn’t a firsthand source of news, so Kern’s role could be at least partially related to curation of other news sources. In February, Apple executive Eddy Cue said the company wants to “vet and make sure that the news providers” in Apple News are “legitimate,” in an effort to cut down on “clickbait.”