I have not independently verified that this meeting is taking place.
Any interest in automated journalism comes as Corporate rolls out other technology-driven initiatives to cut labor costs and boost profits, such as yesterday's announcement of five pagination hubs to build pages for virtually all of Gannett's 81 U.S. community dailies.
In his widely read late-April note, Saridakis wrote: "Narrative Science automates the creation of editorial narratives across a wide range of content verticals. Their technology application requires no human authoring or editing, and can be used to generate narratives about any event that produces significant quantitative data (think sports, financial, health, community data)."
Technology blog Mashable says one of Narrative's programs, Stats Money, "uses the box score and play-by-play — even quotes, if they’re available online — to compile articles that follow one of the system’s pre-defined narrative arcs."
Author Sarah Kessler's Mashable post, "Can robots run the news?" continues: "Narrative Science doesn’t need to pay a reporter or even buy a game ticket in order to sell an article about a sporting event. They could produce and sell an article on every little league game in the country without substantially increasing their overhead costs (provided they have a reliable source of game data, of course)."
What do you know about any Gannett interest in Narrative? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.
[Photo: The robot and Will Robinson from Lost in Space]
Corporate has told us it will be using Narrative Science to write prep sports stories for the new incarnation of highschoolsports.net. They say it has worked great in NCAA coverage. Guess they don't realize that NCAA stats are actually verified and reliable. Can't wait till we post a story saying Johnny Jones smacked 14 home runs in a 32-2 win.
ReplyDeleteThe meeting is happening Jim. Actually, many in the newsroom are excited to learn more about it and do believe that it can help us. Our boss is attending :)
ReplyDeleteNo wonder the paper got rid of me. I didn't quietly sit at my desk rewriting press releases and saying "Yes, master" every time they wanted me to do more work.
ReplyDeleteSomebody needs to tell Gannett that robots don't buy papers, and they don't buy ads.
ReplyDeleteRobots are great! They are running our company right NOW!!! Look at Bob Dickey, he is a robot.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly what you DO NOT want for high school and youth sports coverage. This is opening the door to all kinds of fabricated and incompetent coverage. The newspaper's name will be attached to the story, not the person who calls in, so when this goes badly the newspaper will be blamed.
ReplyDeleteThis opens the door to all kinds of abuses, silly and serious:
* fabricating linescores and game results (extreme, but there was controversy in Boston in the 1990s over hockey coaches changing results on routs to make the losing teams look better. Game results would be 17-1, called in as 7-1).
* parents calling in only first names for their kids' team (like that hasn't happened before)
* coaches promoting their teams and players while making the opponent look bad
* incompetent people having the correct information and all the best intentions, but not knowing how to report a game results and therefore everything in the paper the next day is completely wrong. Not the least because Narrative Science is incapable of guiding the person through the process of reporting a call, and asking questions to help get accurate results and information
No self-respecting organization in the industry would have given this a second thought 20 years ago. It should be something marketed to little league, youth and high school coaches and parents looking to promote their kids and their teams.
That newspapers are seriously considering this sort of thing does not make our industry look good.
Will it be used to write full stories or just quick blurbs? Don't see why that's a big deal. Who likes writing those boring blurbs anyway?
ReplyDeleteJust wait until someone creates a computer program capable of operating as CEOs, CFOs, etc. The inane "robots" at the Crystal Palace will really have trouble arguing against their implementation, especially since they will be smart, inexpensive and have sensible judgment.
ReplyDeleteRobots build cars. When are they going to start running the presses, buying the newspaper and ordering ads.
The Big 10 Sports Network uses it for sports nobody cares about like baseball. Here's an example:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bigtennetwork.com/news/article.asp?story_id=3390305
You can tell because:
- It says "Source: Narrative Science" at the top
- Reading it is like watching paint dry.
It reads like it takes statistics and converts them into a readable form....for morons, I guess. I don't know.
Plus, robots don't duck out early to play golf.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I thought Saridakis had a robot-like writing and speaking style.
ReplyDeleteContributing: HAL 9000.
ReplyDeleteOpen the iPod bay door, Hal. Hal.
ReplyDeleteEvery day, it's clearer how much of a fraud Sardidakis was. This crazy idea is great proof of that.
ReplyDeleteMore proof that it's time to not only exit journalism as a career but to dump the mainstream media from our reading lists. All but the best mainstream media outlets are already woefully bad at presenting the news. Now they're not even going to employ real people to vet it?
ReplyDeleteThe sad part is that some people will eat whatever you feed them, no matter how bad it tastes. So this will probably work out just fine for the company.
That baseball story reads like a parent wrote it. It's sad, but predictable, that this is even being considered.
ReplyDeleteThat Big Ten "story" was a pain to read.
ReplyDeletePlease keep in mind that Narrative Science was working with a stat sheet compiled by professionals.
You will rarely see this at the high school and youth levels. There are prep football coaches in our area who do not compile official statistics until they have a chance to look at the game film the next day. And those statistics are not at the level of an NCAA Division I program like IU or Purdue.
Some programs that realize how important a newspaper is to getting out information about their teams and players will improve their statistics to as high of a level as it takes. Most coaches will shrug; they already have a million things to do.
This is going to be a disaster for people who value accurate reporting of their favorite team's games. And a goldmine for those coaches who realize that the paper doesn't have anyone to question their star tailback averaging 450 yards rushing per game.