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The Future of Journalism: Will Robots Get it Right?
The industry is reshaping the practice of news creation by inviting machine-writing software into their newsrooms. Are algorithms the next gatekeepers?
What if I tell you that some of the most recent news articles you’ve read were written by an automated AI-machine? How would that make you feel? Well, since 2012 the practice has become more common than you might think. News giants have steadily been adapting algorithms, programming them in several software projects to introduce automated news writing in their newsrooms. But, what is exactly automated journalism? According to Matt Carlson, author of “The Robotic Reporter”, it is the algorithmic process that converts data into narrative news texts with limited to no human intervention beyond the initial programming.
With the advent of big data and algorithmic technology, it was only a matter of time before journalism became the industry’s next venture. The way news is produced and distributed was subject to an inevitable change. Respected publishers like Associated Press quickly understood this, and since 2014 have been using the services of Automated Insights, the creators of “Wordsmith”, a robot platform able to convert data from reports into news stories.
The folks from AP aren’t the only ones, LA Times employs a robot that collects information on every homicide committed in the city of Los Angeles, the site created by the machine called “Homicide Report” utilizes a robot-reporter with the ability to include in its reports tons of data that includes: the victim’s gender and race, cause of death, officer involvement, neighborhood, and year of death. Other outlets like The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Forbes.com have also experimented with automated news generators provided by Narrative Science, a start-up headquartered in Chicago, whose co-founder Kristian Hammond, once said that within 15 years more than 90% percent of news would be written by a computer.
Innovation has become a key factor in the media business. We live in a fast pace…
