Taking The Journalists Out Of Journalism
from the replaced dept
Stories about different jobs being replaced by computers have been a favorite for journalists over the years -- now it's some of those journalists being replaced by computers. The Thomson Financial news service says that it will expand the use of computers to write automated stories, mainly on things like earnings reports, which it can churn out as quickly as 0.3 seconds. These sorts of stories are the stock and trade of financial newswires, with speed and accuracy the two most important elements, so there's no reason a computer shouldn't be used to quickly digest a company's earnings report, compare the results to the previous year's, then spit out a quick story -- which typically follows a rigid format, even when written by a human. And, of course, it's cheaper than employing a small army of human writers, but Thomson says speed is the only consideration here (though surely the cost savings don't hurt), and that the system will free up reporters for more thought-intensive tasks, which is how these types of project should be approached: using technology to automate menial tasks to allow human resources to be allocated to other tasks computers can't handle. Thomson says it's been working on different types of software to write different types of stories, making us wonder how long before they release their summer rerun program, freeing up their writers for a nice mid-year break.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Prior Art
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Prior Art
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This is New?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Speaking of prior art
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
foolish humans
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Don't databases do this already?
Databases already generate reports. No, they're not stories but neither is what's mentioned in the article.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Just like stats...
But seriously, earnings reports are hardly stories...they're more like stats summarized into words. I wouldn't really call the folks that write those journalists. And I'm guessing they're happy to not write them.
Analyzing those reports is where it's at.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's a conspiracy
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: It's a conspiracy
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Of course...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
robotic reports
How many times have you heard the phrase :
" . . . ended the day in positive territory " ?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]