I have traded "news" for over 20 years, just the way I trade it changes. It wasn't that long ago you could trade the biggest number of the day, the US trade numbers, reasonably well by calling up a bank/broker after the announcement and getting a price.
For the past 6 years or so I have traded scheduled economic figures via a co-loed algo. Now I am quite aware my algo/set up won't be the quickest and that someone could claim I provide free money to the smart people etc but it works, at least for me. Things have changed over these 6 years and some aspects don't work like they did but the set up still isn't redundant.
Now back to the point of this thread. I also trade news headlines, of the unscheduled variety. I merely point and click trade when reacting to this news and it works. It is patently obvious that there are algos out there who can react faster than me but at the moment it does not matter. There is enough liquidity, and with my knowledge/experience hopefully, to provide me with enough of an opportunity to make money out of this. However just like I had to use technology to change the way I trade numbers I am aware I must adapt or my method will eventually be redundant. Hence the desire to somehow automate the trading of news. I wont need to be the quickest, or have to strip the efficiency down to the nearest micro second, but i would like to evolve..