Oprah Winfrey to Serve as First-Ever Guest Editor for Apple News

[MacRumors]

Last year, Apple and Oprah Winfrey launched Oprah's Book Club in the Apple Books app, providing readers with a curated selection of "stories that truly matter by today's most thought-provoking authors."

Oprah today announced that her latest selection is "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents" by Isabel Wilkerson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author. The book is available now on Apple Books in both written and audiobook formats on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The audiobook can also be listened to on the Apple Watch and through CarPlay.

Later this month, Apple says users will be able to read a collection of articles related to "Caste" on Apple News, curated by Oprah as the app's first-ever guest editor. Oprah is also interviewing Wilkerson about her book, and this will be available for free on Apple TV+ in the fall as part of her companion Oprah's Book Club video series.

"This might be the most important book I've ever chosen for my book club," said Oprah in an Apple Newsroom press release. "'Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents' provides a new way of seeing racial inequality, giving rise to countless aha moments and helping us truly understand America as it is now and how we hope it will be."

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Oprah Winfrey to Serve as First-Ever Guest Editor for Apple News

 

[MacLawyer]

I like it. The lady keeps up with everything, from news and politics to literature.

 

[cardfan]

As long as I can hide the app sounds good.

 

[mactactic]

Hope she talks about her friendship with Epstein & Weinstein! If I were Apple, I’d consider her TOXIC and wouldn’t want her anywhere near my brand.

 

[allan.nyholm]

uh oh - 'thought-provoking authors' in 2020?? Get ready, cos' it's gonna get wild.

I hope Svend Brinkmann is on that list of hers. - oh it's only American thought-provoking authors?! Got ya. This better be good or I'm cancelling the News+ subscription I can't even sign up for.


I am really butt hurt, like literally butt hurt by all the haemorrhoids I got by typing this comment. I could have saved my behind and time by not commenting at all. I guess that boat has sailed.

I will type in a more sober response. I wish her the best. It's a great idea and I don't know why she hasn't been assigned this task much earlier. I guess we'll never know.

 

[480951]

Hope she talks about her friendship with Epstein & Weinstein! If I were Apple, I’d consider her TOXIC and wouldn’t want her anywhere near my brand.

My issue with her has been thrusting Dr Phil, Dr Oz and Jenny McCarthy on the world. I don’t think anything could get me to use Apple News at this point. I tried to like it but it’s so under baked.

 

[w5jck]

I like Oprah, but an editor of a very few articles won’t help a crappy news app be any better IMO. The articles they show are usually old. It reminds me of my childhood in the 1960s when you got monthly magazines and often thought the news therein was new, though it wasn't. It took weeks to publish those magazines and ship them out, so everything was old news. No big deal in the 1960s when news travelled slower than a snail's pace. But today, we are used to seeing things as they happen. Apple's News doesn't get that. They keep rehashing weeks old articles rather than having mostly up to date articles. And don't get me started on all the times I get the "requires subscription" message! For me it is easier to simply go to a few news sites I trust and get their latest news. I don’t see any need to use Apple's News service, and really don’t see why I should pay for New+....

 

[Mr. Dee]

Hope she talks about her friendship with Epstein & Weinstein! If I were Apple, I’d consider her TOXIC and wouldn’t want her anywhere near my brand.

She likes to cherry pick and target. Didn’t mind trying to tarnish Michael Jackson’s reputation in death from two obvious adult liars who had nothing but praises for him until 2013.

 

[RickInHouston]

Why do the same names - over and over, again - get recycled to us? Is there not ANYONE else with an opinion that could be fresh and interesting? We know what Oprah, Dr Oz, Dr Phil, Biden, Beyonce, Kardashians, and all the others, are going to say. I'm so over this 15 minutes of fame lasting a lifetime for certain people.

 

[IIGS User]

My issue with her has been thrusting Dr Phil, Dr Oz and Jenny McCarthy on the world. I don’t think anything could get me to use Apple News at this point. I tried to like it but it’s so under baked.

I was never a huge fan of Dr. Oz. That was until I learned he holds the patent for the heart implant device that saved me from having open heart surgery when I was qualifying for a transplant list.

I was too weak for the open heart surgery to survive it, and the combination of multiple bouts of sepsis and early onset congestive heart failure combined with other factors to cause sufficient liver damage that I would possibly needed a transplant.

The implant I got pretty much fixed all that. My heart functions at the same efficiency as one with no pre existing issues and I have sufficiently recovered to the point where I am no longer a candidate for transplant.

But if they would have cracked my chest when I was weak, chances are I would not have survived it.

So Dr. Oz can be an aers about everything else he wants, but his idea saved my rump....

 

[rmoliv]

I'm sick and tired of Oprah. Do they at Apple really think that their user base is the same that watches Oprah's shows? Please!

 

[ajfahey]

I was never a huge fan of Dr. Oz. That was until I learned he holds the patent for the heart implant device that saved me from having open heart surgery when I was qualifying for a transplant list.

I was too weak for the open heart surgery to survive it, and the combination of multiple bouts of sepsis and early onset congestive heart failure combined with other factors to cause sufficient liver damage that I would possibly needed a transplant.

The implant I got pretty much fixed all that. My heart functions at the same efficiency as one with no pre existing issues and I have sufficiently recovered to the point where I am no longer a candidate for transplant.

But if they would have cracked my chest when I was weak, chances are I would not have survived it.

So Dr. Oz can be an aers about everything else he wants, but his idea saved my rump....

Most people would not have minded at all if Oz had just continued being an innovative interventional radiologist. Alas, he didn't and be got gadfly, celebrity medicine in return.

 

[canadianreader]

The billionaire elite is in charge of the news and they all promoting Biden lol

 

[ryanwarsaw]

I'm sick and tired of Oprah. Do they at Apple really think that their user base is the same that watches Oprah's shows? Please!

Oprah is cultish much like Apple itself. People like my Mom are moths to the flame when Oprah is on. One saying in business that has held true since it's inception is "There is no such thing as too much Oprah".

 

[Lowhangers]

Oprah? So glad I deleted Apple News ages ago and never looked back it. Seems like a desperation move on Apple’s part to try to get more people to use that awful app.

I doubt Oprah will deliver. She’s way past her hey day of the 1980s.

 

[Hal~9000]

This sort of pandering makes it that much clearer to NEVER subscribe to Apple News+.

Paying $10/mo to have your world view shaped, against yourself, by billionaire elites? No thanks...

 

[oldwatery]

This actually creeps me out. She is not a person I like or admire. She epitomizes the crass elite class of celebrities that prey on a sheep like public while offering nothing substantive in return.

 

[citysnaps]

Oprah's many strengths include, among many others, that she's wicked smart, a great communicator, is success-driven, empathic, and connects well with people. A shame that angers so many people

 

[imnotthewalrus]

Oprah's many strengths include, among many others, that she's wicked smart, a great communicator, is success-driven, empathic, and connects well with people. A shame that angers so many people

The problem there is that “Familiarity breeds contempt”. Especially to those that weren’t fans in the first place. I look at her differently since learning the story of her horrible childhood years, but I’m afraid I don’t have near as much interest in her larger than life professional persona.

 

[jive turkey]

Things like this is precisely why I don't use Apple "News." I think we are down two 2 or 3 news organizations that actually focus on news, and unfortunately they get squashed out by all of the big voices from both sides of the political spectrum.

 

[CarlJ]

Why do the same names - over and over, again - get recycled to us? Is there not ANYONE else with an opinion that could be fresh and interesting? We know what Oprah, Dr Oz, Dr Phil, Biden, Beyonce, Kardashians, and all the others, are going to say. I'm so over this 15 minutes of fame lasting a lifetime for certain people.

Pick a name you feel is more deserving (there are plenty), and get 20 million friends to start talking about that person and their recent interesting statements, and they’ll soon be widely quoted in the media too.

 

[WordsmithMR]

My issue with her has been thrusting Dr Phil, Dr Oz and Jenny McCarthy on the world. I don’t think anything could get me to use Apple News at this point. I tried to like it but it’s so under baked.

Bingo. I am sure we all have been associated with a screw up... big or small. We shouldn't be defined by those people... but what she did with Phil, Oz and McCarthy was deliberate and a detriment to our country and world. This is her real flaw. This is what she should be judged for.

 

[Brandhouse]

Things like this is precisely why I don't use Apple "News." I think we are down two 2 or 3 news organizations that actually focus on news, and unfortunately they get squashed out by all of the big voices from both sides of the political spectrum.

100% agree. News isn't generated, it's reported and it's bipartisan.

 

[Ghost31]

Ugh. She’s gone off her rocker nuts. Saying all white people are racist and are gonna have to admit it at some point. So done with her.

 

[WordsmithMR]

100% agree. News isn't generated, it's reported and it's bipartisan.

Not all news is about politics. Stories can be curated.