All of these small decisions used to be made one at a time by humans: A newspaper editor decided which stories to put on the front page, and a magazine photo editor selected photographs to publish; a film programmer picked out which films to play in a theater’s season; an independent radio station DJ assembled playlists of songs that fit their own mood and the particular vibe of a day or a place. While these decisions were of course subject to various social and economic forces, the person in charge of them ensured a basic level of quality, or even safety, that can be missing from the
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