Facebook could launch a dedicated news tab very soon

Facebook wants you to head to its site and apps for news coverage as well as memes that your friends and family are sharing: the social media giant has apparently struck a deal with news providers that will let it display headlines in a dedicated news tab.

That's as per a report from the Wall Street Journal, which says licensing fees and other details have been worked out with the WSJ, the New York Post, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed News and Business Insider.

Part of the negotiations involved working out how paywalls would be handled, the WSJ says – news providers aren't going to want to give away all their stories for free.

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According to inside sources, not all of the 200 or so news outlets will be paid, but for the biggest ones, the licensing fees could run into the millions of dollars per year.

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Both human editors and algorithms are going to be used to pick the best stories of the day, the WSJ reports, and there won't be any advertising in this new news tab. With the fees agreed, a launch could happen before the end of the month.

This hasn't come completely out of the blue: earlier this year Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he was exploring the idea of adding news to the site and apps.

"It's important to me that we help people get trustworthy news and find solutions that help journalists around the world do their important work," said Zuckerberg back in April.

The arrangements that Facebook has reached with publishers sound similar to those struck to set up Apple News Plus, the digital newspaper and magazine bundle service that launched in March.