Facebook to Team With News Orgs on Story 'Packages'

Facebook on Wednesday launched a new program aimed at establishing stronger ties with the media.

As part of its new Journalism Project, Facebook will be “collaborating with news organizations to develop products, learning from journalists about ways we can be a better partner and working with publishers and educators on how we can equip people with the knowledge they need to be informed readers in the digital age,” Director of Product Fidji Simo wrote in a blog post.

Though Facebook has worked with members of the media in the past, the social network plans to ramp up that collaboration by involving news partners in its product development process from the start. The company said it wants to work with media to tweak its current formats, like Live and Instant Articles, and build new ones “to better suit their needs.”

One idea it’s working on: Giving editors the ability to present “packages of stories” on the platform. “We’re going to start testing this using Instant Articles,…