@Tung - my friend Brett has a pretty great way of automating the link portion of his blog, his "Web Excursions" stuff -- at BrettTerpstra.com. I don't know the exact particulars (though I'm sure he has it documented, he would), but I'm pretty sure it uses a combination of Pinboard.in links and hand-crafted descriptions. Markdown is involved somewhere too (if you know Brett you get the joke).

His site isn't built on WordPress -- he uses Jekyll -- but he used to use WordPress and I know he had a plugin for auto-posting his link-list each day back then (using either Pinboard and before that Delicious).

I think that some sort of bookmarklet that would let you add a link and a description to a running list someplace, and once you hit X number of links, you publish, could be a great way for multiple people to contribute to a curated workflow that is also partially automated.

Of course, as you say, the need for images and other data to carry over into posts -- which could be added to the embed/link process as part of a bookmarklet or other system -- is still there. And that doesn't obviate the other value of a news site, which is commentary, analysis and reviews -- but it would be better than nothing. If the more day-to-day aspect of surfacing the best stuff could be better automated, maybe that would leave more time for those individuals who want to create other types of content.

Now, this doesn't address the monetization issue at all -- but at this point, that wouldn't necessarily have to be the goal. I'm fortunate enough to have lots of friends (like Brett), that make at least some money from their curated link/blog efforts. Some of them (like Shawn Blanc), even make their whole living that way.