A digital magazine server generates a digital magazine for user based on a received request for the digital magazine identifying one or more topics. The digital magazine server applies one or more machined trained models to obtained content items to select content items for the topic. A hierarchy of the topics included in the received request may be determined by the digital magazine server and used by the trained models to select content items. When generating the digital magazine, the digital magazine server also includes one or more editorial content items that are manually selected. The digital magazine serer may reposition one or more content items selected by the trained models to include an editorial content items.