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RFS1: write a crawler to gather as much information as possible on trending topics, rank the sources, then have a writer look through the autatically gathered data and use his intelligence and skill to put it into a nicely flowing story that makes sense?

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You've just described the standard news editorial process. Instead of a "crawler" they have the wire services, and source rankings are fairly static, but otherwise, yep, that's how it's done. The problem is not the means of production (so to speak) it's how to make money from it.

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