When Reporters Get Hands-on with Robo-Writing

Abstract

The availability of data feeds, the demand for news on digital devices, and advances in algorithms are helping to make automated journalism more prevalent. This article extends the literature on the subject by analysing professional journalists' experiences with, and attitudes to, the technology. Uniquely, the participants were drawn from a range of news organizations-including the BBC, CNN, and Thomson Reuters-and had first-hand experience working with robo-writing software provided by one of the leading technology suppliers. The results reveal journalists' judgements on the limitations of automation, including the nature of its sources and the sensitivity of its "nose for news". Nonetheless, journalists believe that automated journalism will become more common, increasing the depth, breadth, specificity, and immediacy of information available. While some news organizations and consumers may benefit, such changes raise ethical and societal issues and, counter-intuitively perhaps, may increase the need for skills-news judgement, curiosity, and scepticism-that human journalists embody.

Human Still in the Loop

“…However, it contributes to the existing scholarship on journalists' conception of automation (e.g. Young and Hermida 2015;Thurman, Dörr and Kunert 2017) by introspecting the ongoing discursive negotiation and ideological preservation of professionalisation among editorial decision-makers in newsrooms. The interviewees' narrations of journalism ideals provide valuable insights that allow us to place the findings in the context of what Nerone (2015) identifies as "journalism's crisis of hegemony", which has accompanied the transformation of the media infrastructure since the late 20 th century.…”

“…By analysing the decision-making rationale behind technological innovations in newsrooms and reconsidering the core ideals of professional journalism, we contribute to the rare scholarly accounts that explore responses by journalists who have practical experience of automation (e.g. Young and Hermida 2015;Thurman, Dörr and Kunert 2017). On the basis of semi-structured interviews with editors of legacy news institutions in the United Kingdom and Germany, from news agencies and public broadcasters to commercial general and specialised news outlets with regional, national or/and international reach, this study reveals the dynamics of ideologisation introduced by automation novelties and how those dynamics can throw light on our understanding of journalism's self-conception in the processes of knowledge production, representation of social reality and participation in political life.…”

Periodismo computacional: evolución, casos y herramientas

“…Los temas abordados son muy variados: -opciones tecnológicas e innovadoras utilizadas (Newman, 2017;Shearer;Gottfried, 2017;Gynnild, 2014); -desafíos éticos y legales que comporta la creación de noticias con algoritmos (Weeks, 2014); -conceptos de autoría y copyright (Montal;Reich, 2016;Carlson, 2015); -necesidad de transparencia de los algoritmos para no cuestionar su manipulación (Diakopoulos, 2015; Hamilton; Turner, 2009) y asegurar la integridad de los datos (Dörr; Hollnbuchner, 2017); -percepción del lector sobre las noticias generadas (Wölker;Powell, 2018;Graefe et al, 2018); -opinión de los periodistas sobre el uso de robots en las redacciones (Thurman;Kunert, 2017;Jung et al, 2017;Lindén, 2017b).…”

‘Our task is to demystify fears’: Analysing newsroom management of automation in journalism

“…In scholarship on automation in journalism investigations of newswork-management dynamics have been only marginally explored (Cohen, 2015;Bucher, 2017;Slaček Brlek, Smrke and Vobič, 2017). However, scholarship provides insights into practices and perceptions (van Dalen, 2012;Young and Hermida, 2015;Thurman et al, 2017), profoundly discusses epistemological implications (Splendore, 2016;Coddington, 2015;Carlson, 2017) and reconsiders legal and ethical issues of recent human-automation modes of journalism (Dörr and Hollbuchner, 2017;Diakopoulos and Koliska, 2017;Montal and Reich, 2017). To add to these discussions, we explore automation through the negotiations of newsroom management -a 'breed' of editors that has affirmed itself in the last three decades, manoeuvring between news and business ideals and interests (Underwood, 1993(Underwood, /1995 x)and its role in dynamics of the "appropriation of journalists" (Hardt, 1998: 194).…”