AP via RSS -- Bloggers Susan Mernit, Jeff Jarvis and Rex Hammock are reporting various angles of the news that the Associated Press has launched some RSS feeds. Now news junkies using RSS readers ("aggregators") no longer have to subscribe to AP feeds through intermediate sources.

These do-it-yourself AP feeds carry headlines, datelines and a sentence summary, with a link to the full story at AP.org.

So far, I haven't seen anyone point out that today's "featured feed" is a collection of NASCAR headlines, sure to find some Rocky Top Brigade subscribers. Here's the first of the 10 stories in the feed right now:

The featured feed promises to change now and then, but one of the main headings offered is "Strange," which tonight leads with a twist on a classic what-is-news cliche:

Other than Strange, the main AP feeds look like the main sections of your Sunday paper: Top News, U.S. National, World, Politics, Washington, Business, Technology, Sports, Entertainment, Health, Science.

Reuters began offering RSS feeds last year, as have major news outlets like The New York Times, Washington Post, and even some Tennessee sites.

On the other hand, if you don't have 100 hours in a day to read the news feeds, you may want to let your favorite newspaper's wire desk (or neighborhood blogger) put together a mix of stories from a variety of services. In fact, that was my first "online news" job -- as a "shovelware" wire editor for the Nando Times, now absorbed by McClatchy newspapers as the "24 hour news" links on its member sites.

For more about RSS and aggregators and podcasts, see the lower left column of this blog's main page (which you don't see if you're just reading my RSS feed). In fact, I updated the podcast and videoblog article a couple of times and forgot to mention it here.


6:15:27 PM  #