New forms of journalism: Robot, AI, Automation

Newspaper and news agency journalists are upset as they received the BBC news that the Microsoft has planned to replace dozens of its contract journalists on its MSN website and use automated systems to select news stories (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52860247?intlink_from_url=&link_location=live-reporting-story, dated May 30, 2020).

This has hit the English language journalists hard. It is because the story has appeared on the backdrop of the reports that publishers in the USA and Europe have been sacking journalists due to the plummeting advertising revenue since the beginning of the 21^st century.

The situation was slightly better for journalists in India until recently. It is changing fast with the onset of Corona 19 since March 2020. A month later, some newspaper managements have shrunk their bureaus. Suddenly the publishers have shut down loss-making units. Some have retrenched their journalists and non-journalist staff because of the recession. The reaction among the horrified journalists was ‘it is a bloodbath.’ Some owners have offered to retain the journalists if these employees agreed to a pay cut of up to 50 per cent. Most employees have no option.

The curating of stories from news organisations and the selection of headlines and pictures for the MSN site is currently done by journalists. Artificial intelligence will perform these news production tasks. Microsoft has said it was part of an evaluation of its business.

Microsoft, like some other tech companies, pays news organisations to use their content on its website. However, it employs journalists to decide which stories to display and how they are presented.

Around 50 contract news producers would lose their jobs at the end of June, 2020, The Seattle Times reported, but a team of full-time journalists would remain. ‘It's demoralizing to think machines can replace us but there you go,’ one of those facing redundancy told the newspaper.

Twenty-seven of those losing their jobs are employed by the UK's PA Media, The Guardian reported . Microsoft is one of the many tech companies experimenting with forms of so-called robot journalism to cut costs. Google is also investing in projects to understand how it might work.

However, this development to deploy robots in news organisations is not sudden and unexpected. Journalists in the West knew it was coming. The media has been reporting the developments in bits and pieces over the past few years.

For example, the Associated Press had struck a deal in 2014 with Automated Insights, a technology company, This company specializes in Language Generation Software (NLG) that produces billions of machine-generated stories a year. The NLG is a software process that automatically transforms data into written narrative. (https://automatedinsights.com/natural-language-generation/)

For years, journalists at the Associated Press have had little time to focus on hard- hitting, journalistic pieces, and instead spent many hours each quarter producing financial reports. During that time, AP had the capacity to produce only 300 financial reports a quarter, leaving thousands of potential company earnings reports unwritten.

In addition to covering company earnings for Bloomberg, robot reporters have been prolific producers of articles on minor league baseball for The Associated Press, high school football for The Washington Post and earthquakes for The Los Angeles Times.

Similar to the financial reporters, sports journalists in the West were responsible for sorting through stacks of box scores and games notes to write previews and recaps for college basketball and Minor League Baseball games. Prior to the adoption of Automated Insights’ Wordsmith, journalists only had time to write about the top teams in each league, and were unable to cover unranked match-ups.

Stanford and the University of Washington Study

A study by researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington found that Automated Insights’ technology has had a profound effect on the stock marketing. As a result of the partnership between AP and Automated Insights, hundreds of firms that received little attention from traders are now seeing significantly more trading volume and liquidity. (https://automatedinsights.com/customer-stories/associated-press/)

As Jaclyn Peiser had reported on Feb. 5, 2019, journalism generated by machine was already on the rise. Roughly a third of the content published by Bloomberg News uses some form of an automated technology. The system used by the company, Cyborg, is able to assist reporters in churning out thousands of articles on company earnings reports each quarter.

The Guardian’s Australia edition published its first machine-assisted article in February, 2019, an account of annual political donations to the country’s political parties. Forbes announced the same year that it was testing a tool called Bertie to provide reporters with rough drafts and story templates.

(https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/business/media/artificial-intelligence-journalism-robots.html)

Approximately one-third of the content from Bloomberg News leverages one form of automation or another. Thanks to a system called Cyborg, the publisher’s reporters are able to produce thousands of articles about company earnings each quarter.

With no need for breaks, lightning-fast comprehension, and pinpoint precision, Cyborg can digest a financial report and return a news story with the most relevant facts and figures in a matter of minutes. It allows Bloomberg News to compete with rivals such as Reuters in the fast-paced world of financial journalism.

(https://www.dogtownmedia.com/will-machine-learning-replace-journalists/)

First AI News Anchor

On November 8, 2018, the world’s first ‘artificial intelligence news anchor’ was launched in China. It was developed by Xinhua and Chinese search engine company Sogou. The anchor was designed to simulate human voice, facial expressions and gestures. (https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/09/media/china-xinhua-ai-anchor/index.html)

On November 8, 2018, the world’s first ‘artificial intelligence news anchor’ was launched in China. It was developed by Xinhua and Chinese search engine company Sogou. The anchor was designed to simulate human voice, facial expressions and gestures. (https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/09/media/china-xinhua-ai-anchor/index.html)

The Ericsson Networked Society Lab, Stockholm, Sweden, has brought out an important 24-page document that promises that software will continue to supplement journalists and provide a helping hand for media companies. They will work together to do a better job and maximize limited resources by automating processes, carrying out routine work, providing a presence across multiple locations, and conducting data research – all while cutting costs and increasing profit margin for media companies. (https://www.ericsson.com/en/reports-and-papers/networked-society-insights/future-of-journalism/the-rise-of-robot-journalism)

The Lab’s Report by Mikael Törnwall, has come out with Ten Predictions as listed here:  (https://www.ericsson.com/4a5427/assets/local/reports-papers/networked-society-insights/doc/the-future-of-journalism-in-a-networked-society_screen.pdf)

Ten Predictions

1. The faster-changing landscape and smaller, more agile media companies
2. A blurred line between journalist and audience.
3. Print news is dead.
4. On-demand replaces linear TV and radio
5. News becomes more and more mobile
6. Even more personalized content
7. Interactivity, AR and VR as a part of media
8. Smarter advertising formats
9. Journalism becomes a service
10. More journalists will be replaced by software.

(www.ericsson.com)

Background

Using computers in place of hand composing/mono or linotype to typeset the written text began in India in the late 1980s. It was followed by the use of desktop publishing, the internet, and web technology after 1995. The media industry was quick to absorb the rapid developments in Information and communications technology. ne hardware and software as also newer information and communication technologies became available to journalists and even commoners in the 2000s.

These developments have led to the availability of features such as Google typing, input devices, and Google translates for journalists and authors.

It is only now, in 2020, that Microsoft and other companies are trying to use robots. They were set to take on a more significant role in a networked society. The robots have begun working alongside humans to improve output and create smarter content.

The terms such as robot journalism, robot reporter, ‘AI (artificial intelligence)  journalism’, AI-assisted journalism, and ‘automated journalism’ are not new to journalists and the media industry any more. These are bringing about changes within the profession – and it is likely that software will play an increasing role in journalism and media. 

Prof Dr Kiran Thakur
FLAME University
Pune 

drkiranthakur@gmail.com, kiran.thakur@flame.edu.in  

07.06.,2020
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