Tag Archives: automation

VIDEO: How automation played a central role in data journalism — and is now playing it again

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Automation was key to the work of data journalism pioneers such as Adrian Holovaty — and it’s becoming increasingly central once again. This video, made for students on the MA in Data Journalism at Birmingham City University, explores the variety of roles that automation plays in data journalism; new concepts such as robot journalism, natural language generation (NLG) and structured journalism; and how data journalists’ editorial role becomes “delegated to the future” through the creation of algorithms.

You can find the video about Poligraft, and the FT on robot journalism at those links.

This video is shared as part of a series of video posts.

This is how I’ll be teaching journalism students ChatGPT (and generative AI) next semester

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Robot with books
Image by kjpargeter on Freepik

I’m speaking at the Broadcast Journalism Teaching Council‘s summer conference this week about artificial intelligence — specifically generative AI. It’s a deceptively huge area that presents journalism educators with a lot to adapt to in their teaching, so I decided to put those in order of priority.

Each of these priorities could form the basis for part of a class, or a whole module – and you may have a different ranking. But at least you know which one to do first…

Priority 1: Understand how generative AI works

The first challenge in teaching about generative AI is that most people misunderstand what it actually is — so the first priority is to tackle those misunderstandings.

Continue reading →

GEN 2019 round-up: 4 videos to watch on the potential of data and AI

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Krishna Bharat

This year’s Global Editor’s Network (GEN) Summit, in Athens, Greece, had a big focus on the use of verification and automation. BBC News data scientist and PGCert Data Journalism student Alison Benjamin went along to see what was being said about artificial intelligence (AI), data and technology in the news industry. Here are her highlights…
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FAQ: Do you think that an increase in algorithms is leading to a decline in human judgement?

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recipe by Phillip Stewart

This algorithm has been quality tested. Image by Phillip Stewart

The latest in my series of FAQ posts follows on from the last one, in response to a question from an MA student at City University who posed the question “Do you think that an increase in algorithmic input is leading to a decline in human judgement?”. Here’s my response.

Does an increase in computation lead to a decline in human input?

Firstly, it’s important to emphasise that the vast majority of data journalism involves no algorithms or automation at all: it’s journalists making calculations, which historically they would have done manually.

You mention the possibility that “an increase in computation leads to a decline in human input”. An analogy would be to ask whether an increase in pencils leads to a decline in human input in art. Continue reading →

Here’s the thinking behind my new MA in Data Journalism

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A few weeks ago I announced that I was launching a new MA in Data Journalism, and promised that I would write more about the thinking behind it. Here, then, are some of the key ideas underpinning the new course — from coding and storytelling to security and relationships with industry — and how they have informed its development. Continue reading →

5 highlights from news:rewired: from live video ethics to mobile data journalism

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principal

Photo: Reuters News Agency

In a guest post for OJB, Livia Vieira rounds up some of the highlights of News:Rewired 2017, from best practices to deal with fake news and engagement with live videos, to newsroom automation, mobile data journalism and collaborative storytelling and groundbreaking initiatives in newsrooms. 

1. Engagement and ethics in live social video

According to Alfred Joyner, head of video of IBT Media, 66% of the views on Facebook Live videos happen after they end, so it is important to re-package the content, giving it new meaning.

Alfred also emphasised that IBT trains its anchors and uses high quality equipment to ensure the quality of transmissions — although all speakers hit on the point that Facebook Live is not TV, and so does not need to have that ‘casted’ format. Continue reading →

2016 was the year of the bot — here’s a brief history of how they have been used in journalism

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Robot gif

2016 was the year of the bot in journalism. In this edited extract from the forthcoming second edition of the Online Journalism Handbook, I outline what bots are, how bots have been used by media organisations from early Twitter bots to the recent wave of ‘chatbots’, and some tips and tools for getting started with journalistic bots.

‘Bots’ are ‘robots’ – only on the internet. Without the mechanical body of their physical counterparts, all that leaves is a disembodied computer script, normally created to perform repetitive tasks.

This broad description takes in a whole range of activities, and so the term ‘bot’ is used to talk about very different things in different contexts:

  • In search you might talk about bots used to index webpages, such as the ‘Googlebot’.
  • In finance and commerce you might talk about bots used to monitor information online and respond to it by buying or selling things.
  • And in advertising and politics you might talk about bots being used for nefarious purposes: for example, to make it look like more people are viewing webpages, clicking on adverts, or arguing for a particular candidate.

This article isn’t about any of those.

In the context of journalism and publishing, the term ‘bot’ is normally used to refer to something which users can interact with. Examples include: Continue reading →

The ‘Metajournalist’ and the return of personalised news: research on automated reporting

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Matt Carlson has written an interesting piece of research (£) into ‘The Robotic Reporter’: namely, automated journalism where articles are written by algorithms.

His interest lies largely in the “technological drama” of competing narratives and cultures – but along the way he identifies some developments and implications which appear in the minority of reports beyond those recurring stories of “augmentation or elimination” (of journalists’ jobs), but which may be more interesting. Continue reading →

Ethics in data journalism: automation, feeds, and a world without gatekeepers

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This is the last in a series of extracts from a draft book chapter on ethics in data journalism. Others have looked at how ethics of accuracy play out in data journalism projects; culture clashes, privacy, user data and collaboration; mass data gathering; and protection of sources. This is a work in progress, so if you have examples of ethical dilemmas, best practice, or guidance, I’d be happy to include it with an acknowledgement.

Budget Forecasts, Compared With Reality

Budget Forecasts, Compared With Reality

The ethics of automation and feeds

Since Adrian Holovaty built ChicagoCrime.org in 2005 to automatically update a map with police crime statistics, automation has been an important element of data journalism. Few news organisations have guidelines on automation, but the BBC’s guidelines (2013) on video feeds do provide a framework. Continue reading →

How I hacked my journalism workflow (#jcarn)

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I’ve been meaning to write a post for some time breaking down all the habits and hacks I’ve acquired over the years – so this month’s Carnival of Journalism question on ‘Hacking your journalism workflow’ gave me the perfect nudge.

Picking those habits apart is akin to an act of archaeology. What might on the surface look very complicated is simply the accumulation of small acts over several years. Those acts range from the habits themselves to creating simple shortcuts and automated systems, and learning from experience. So that’s how I’ve broken it down:

1. Shortcuts

Shortcuts are such a basic part of my way of working that it’s easy to forget they’re there: bookmarks in the browser bar, for example. Or using the Chrome browser because its address bar also acts as a search bar for previous pages.

I realise I use Twitter lists as a shortcut of sorts – to zoom in on particular groups of people I’m interested in at a particular time, such as experts in a particular area, or a group of people I’m working with. Likewise, I use folders in Google Reader to periodically check on a particular field – such as data journalism – or group – such as UK journalists. Continue reading →