“A relatively quiet news-room, except for the low-key movement of editors, which is abruptly broken into by a robot armed with an automatic machinegun. It sprays bullets on whoever it meets on its way until they are all gunned down.”
A satirical vision of the future of journalism, according to ‘The Daily Show.’
“This year’s Pulitzer Prize goes to…. a computer.”
A realistic vision of the future of journalism, according to The Guardian.
“A relatively quiet news-room, except for the low-key movement of editors, which is abruptly broken into by a robot armed with an automatic machinegun. It sprays bullets on whoever it meets on its way until they are all gunned down.”
A satirical vision of the future of journalism, according to ‘The Daily Show.’
“This year’s Pulitzer Prize goes to…. a computer.”
A realistic vision of the future of journalism, according to The Guardian.
Both the real and surreal have a similar message – the future of journalism looks rocky for journalists as technology plays a bigger role in news production.
- Crisis-ridden Egyptian and Arab journalism is still looking for profits and political influence and at the same time indulged in state narrative alignment, which adversely affects its hardcopy circulation and online circulation. The attempts made by some in the industry to find a way out of this crisis coincide with news by the Associated Press (AP) written by a robot or a computer program that will soon replace journalists.
Wordsmith, a program put into service about a year ago, receives data and the editorial line of a press organization and the output is a flawless story that falls in line with the organization’s style and writing system. It is currently only used in news agencies, however Wordsmith will be launched in trials by some individuals this year.
Through Wordsmith, AP produces 3,000 stories every month. The figure is likely to steadily increase. These stories are used by Yahoo News, CNBC, Business Insider, Salon, etc. Google the following sentence “This story was generated by Automated Insights,” then browse the results and smile.
“We do not exactly know how many journalists have lost their jobs because of us,” says James Kotecki, head of communications at Automated Insights – developers of Wordsmith. “The future is humans with machines, not humans against machines.”
The popular American comedy program, ‘The Daily Show’ prepared a relatively long sketch on Wordsmith in which it hosted New York Times columnist Barbara Ehrenreich. Computer algorithms “Will do, and can do, our work,” Ehrenreich told Hasan Minhaj. “Prepare to be unemployed, Hasan.”
AP Managing Editor Lou Ferrara says Wordsmith has, “zero bias and zero errors.”
Automated Insights employs 50 programmers and IT professionals. Only two of its employees work in the media sector; one in marketing and the other is Kotecki. “Our program produces stories journalists are not interested in, like earnings stories, so that they may concentrate their efforts on other subjects,” says Kotecki. “When Wordsmith was put into service with the AP, we did not hear of any journalists who lost their jobs. What is certain however is that they could concentrate on other high-caliber stories.”
This is exactly what Arab journalism is likely to face in the very near future.
2. In this part of the world, the news industry is facing a complex crisis and a suffocating blockade. On the one hand, there is the everlasting development of technology in the western hemisphere, and on the other, there is a declining journalistic content caused by political pressure, ads and newspaper owners. Journalists believe that now is worse than ever. This however does not necessarily mean there is no chance for journalists’ survival.
Some say the solution is focusing on classical features, with an investigative nature. Nonetheless, this seems to be somewhat impractical. True, Wordsmith has not so far produced this type of journalism, but it will inevitably do so because technology is continuously developing. The sustainable development of the genres of reports, coupled with creating new ways for reporting and presentation of materials, in addition to the new mediums and data journalism in their televised and broadcasted forms, seem to be the only solution to journalists to keep their profession until further notice.
There are three models for the types that can exist with, not against, this fast-moving development, at least for the few years ahead:
- Based on a simple rule that our interest in reading a new form reflecting human experiences is a perpetual process, the classical narrative method, which mixes narrative description with investigative reports is destined to continue. A good example of this is press reports written by the literature Nobel Prize laureate in 2015, Belarusian Svetlana Alexievich, in which she combines narrative account with investigative reports about the Chernobyl disaster victims.
- Keep the light literary language to narrate a story with visual development as another viable model, like the report ‘The Man in Waterproof Diving Suit’ by Norwegian journalist Andreas Philberg, which is about an investigation into a body of a man in a diving suit found on the Norwegian shores.
As for online journalism, which is also at stake due to light list journalism and paid traffic (dirty traffic), it can make its way out. It is possible to convert the story into a short illustrative video clip that falls in line with the social media presentation methods, in addition to being shown on the press foundation’s website. Vox report ‘How Turkey Weight Doubled over 80 Years’ is a model of how three journalistic genres can be linked together: data journalism, investigation and video. That report could answer the how and the why sought by any journalists engaged in investigative reporting.
- A different solution is abandoning all classical narrative forms and turning the entire investigation into an exciting interactive game played by readers instead of narrating the information collected in the report.
An example is when a BBC journalist makes readers experience refugees’ circumstances and gets them into an adventure that motivates them to continue reading until the end of the game, which requires readers to follow many possibilities regarding the paths pursued by Syrian refugees fleeing their country to the exiles of the three continents of the ancient world.
Those seeking solutions to the crises hitting their newspapers often look into western experiences. However, the latest available report from the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers direct their attention eastward to India, which led the world in terms of newspaper circulation. The same terse report refers to an increasing desire among the readership to have a proper online press, even if paid. It also admits that press foundations’ economies are still mainly dependent on circulation and ads.
3. Standing in the face of news industry development brings to mind the scene of the drivers of horse-drawn carriages when they saw a tramcar for the first time. This is the greatest challenge facing those working in the journalism industry. Means of human transportation continues to be operated by humans, while cart drivers no longer exist.
