Robo-Eyewitness Stories Coming to Your Local News?
Andre Lenartowicz As social media began taking off in the early aughts and 2010s, the reverse began happening with local news. Newsrooms took a heavy hit as subscriptions dipped and droves of reporters were laid off or forced into early retirement. But now, with new artificial intelligence technology becoming more evolved and accessible, it could bring a resurgence to the idea of how local news is sourced and created.Last summer, Google announced it was investing in a project to automate the writing of 30,000 local news stories a month through the use of robotics. In 2018, it rolled out a limited pilot of Google Bulletin, described as “an app for hyperlocal stories about your community, for your community, right from your phone” —essentially a user-driven news app. I don’t know about you, but that sounds a little like Twitter without the blue bird.But wait — freeze frame. Record scratch. Hasn’t the G been here before? If you’ve been in technology public relations for more than a decade, surely you remember Google’s past social experiments such as Orkut, Wave and Plus. So what’s different this time around?
It’s no doubt artificial intelligence is finding a footing outside of industrial and commercial settings and into our homes. Devices like Alexa can be fine-tuned to learn from our inputs and provide an acceptable output. Maybe local news is no different. Outside of the often-complex stories reserved for sweeps and Sundays, it could be argued that a portion of local news stories are formulaic.But are these the stories we want? And what are the dangers?AI-driven stories created by following a journalistic “formula” would potentially transform journalism into listicles. They might lack emotion, color and even quotes from experts or witnesses because machines simply don’t have access to the type of sources that humans have access to. They can’t interpret gestures or go out to the scene of news as it’s happening.It’s easy to see how data-driven reporting works in an industrial, controlled setting. But it’s not so easy to imagine humans being replaced by writing robots, particularly when the task is supplemented by human emotion, investigation and subjectivity.“Some of the most raw, inspiring, truth-seeking journalism wouldn’t be possible without a reporter’s emphatic, dogged research known as shoe-leather journalism,” Jessica Elizarraras, food and nightlife editor at the San Antonio Current, says.Robotic or AI-driven distribution of content is also potentially problematic.“Misinformation is already spreading so readily,” Elizarraras added. “We’ve seen how algorithms choosing stories could help promote entirely manufactured posts (e.g., 2016 election). A move toward artificial intelligence seems to want to take away bias at a high cost, often relying on unfeeling technology.”Where tools like Google Bulletin will go remains to be seen.While it’s true humans are filled with a sense of pride that drives the notion they aren’t replaceable by robots even if hypothetically this would work out, in the end someone needs to manage the robots, and who better than trained editors to manage that batch? [author] About the Author: Andre Lenartowicz is a tri-lingual public relations professional living in Austin, Texas. He manages PR for Epicor and is a contributing writer for the PRSA Technology Section newsletter, as well as a Section committee member. [/author]
