What becomes of journalists in our disruptive age of disintermediation, where technology is undermining the very viability of our industrial knowledge working class? Read on.
Meanwhile, the numbers are in for 2009, and they are truly awful. According to numbers released earlier this week by the Newspaper Association of America, advertising revenue was down by more than $10 billion, or 27.2 percent, from 2008, itself the worst year for newspapers since the Great Depression. Between 2005 and 2009, newspaper revenue has fallen by over 44 percent, dropping from almost $50 billion in 2005 to under $28 billion in 2009.
The consequence of this revenue crisis, of course, is more and more layoffs of journalists. Every dollar not collected from advertisers is one fewer dollar which can be paid to reporters. It’s not surprising, therefore, that 2009 was also a truly miserable year to be a journalist, with tens of thousands of professionals losing their jobs at newspapers and magazines.
Fortunately, there’s a solution to the economic crisis of newspapers and journalists -- and it’s not ChatRoulette. Just as Google has made humans redundant in the creation of information through its artificial algorithm, there might be upside to the redundancy of the human being in the collection and reporting of news.
Welcome the robot journalist.
Yes, a Tokyo University-based research team at the university’s Intelligent Systems Informatics Lab (ISI) has made a great “breakthrough” in the development of a robotic journalist.
And this robot is pretty smart. In contrast to most bloggers (those lazy opinionators never leave their computer terminals), this virtual Woodward and Bernstein can, according to the appropriately named SingularityHub.com, “explore its surroundings, take pictures, interview people, perform internet searches and publish online.”
No, this isn’t an April Fools joke (although I wish it were). While the singularity crowd is now arguing over why people need robot journalism in the Google era, I can only mourn the passing of the human-being journalist and wonder if we are sleepwalking into a brave new world of artificial reporters and even more artificial news.
I wonder what comes with robot journalism. The obvious answer is robot readers -- machines that have replaced human beings as the consumers of news.
It’s a bad joke, this death of the newspaper and the rise of the robot journalist.
So on this April Fools Day, spare a thought for the old print newspaper and the human reporter. In ten years' time, not only will this piece have been written by a robot, but it will probably be read by one, too.
— Andrew Keen, Silicon Valley author, broadcaster, and entrepreneur, can be reached on Twitter at
As with anything, it's all about interpretation. It's difficult to believe much of what's reported in the news anyway and you never get the full story with all the editing and paraphrasing. It's as if one must constantly read between the lines to get at the truth. Even if robots are reporting the facts, people will still have different interpretations of what the robot reports. Who will control the programming that allows the robot to report? How is the general public to know that that programming isn't set up to make the robot only report certain facts, and not others?
Good questions. One thing a robot journalist COULD do is to report ALL of the facts and stories that otherwise BIASED human journalists sometimes purposefully sidestep.
Classic Media investigate what THEY choose to, driveby & cherry pick stories THEY want to report on and then air those stories that promote beliefs, views, opinions and/or causes. Other cherry picked stories that OPPOSE their own views will be demeaned or cast with a negative image. Some FACTS & stories are also sidestepped, intentionally missed or not fully investigated that may hurt their own beliefs, views, opinions and/or causes. So, where is TRUE integrity in that process?
Will a PR Rep for a chemical company for example, ever proactively hold a public news conference to report on a cancer causing ingredient that they produce, or would they bury that item? Would Toyota proactively tell the public that there are safety issues with their cars, or would they try to bury that or wait until accidents occur? Would someone in the media report on corruption in their own company? Hardly. This occurs everyday with everyone in our daily lives, bias.
Does this ever occur in the so called "news media?" No you say? Are you sure? Then I hear & see one side saying the other side's news or views are "illegitmate!". Now that really makes me wonder about the honesty, integrity and intentions of the classical so-called "news" process.
What would a robot journalist do when confronted with news events caused by another robot going wild?
Or in a court case where one plaintiff is a robot and the other one not a robot?
What would a robot journalist publish in reference of a robot being jailed because of a certain malfunction that causes a kind of certain death to some non robot?
Can we trust election results announced by a robot?
Can Donald Trump say: YOU ARE FIRED! to a robot? Does anyone care?
How would President Obama be treated if interviewed by a robot?
Would FOX News hire a robot for any of their their NIEWUS programs?
Can a robot journalist be the only fair reporter covering the Vatican?
A robot is an automatically guided machine, able to do tasks on its own. Another common characteristic is that by its appearance or movements, a robot often conveys a sense that it has intent or agency of its own.
Well, I think this definition in Wikipedia, an almost robotic encyclopedia, says it all. According to this definition, a robot would be capable of reporting on its own. If this is correct then, what becomes of reality? The facts published by a robotic journalist?
I think the path we are going down is very dangerous in regards to news and the soon-to-be lost generation of journalists. How can we expect to know the story behind the story if we don't have qualified and skilled reporters working it? A story about a small business burning to the ground is not that useful unless we also know that it was insurance fraud or that it is linked to several other fires in the area and there is an arsonist responsible.
Without intelligent reporting, we'll just be awash is facts and data and won't have the time and resources to understand and interpret them appropriately. It is sad to see where all of this is heading. A few global media giants writing about consumer fads in the simplist language possible or slanting all stories for political and business purposes. Scary stuff...
You are correct, DHCIR, I am placing value on the human interpretation of facts. The ultimate judgement of how they report and interpret their facts determines the quality of their reporting.
I see your point, that ultimate objectivity will ignore even the results of that reporting. Interesting point - you may be right! (Note: I will still bet on the quality journalist.)
While a robot journalist might be too extreme (right now), "automatic" journalism is here to stay. An application that can gather pictures, articles, interviews isn't very far fetched.
Besides, in this green world, newspapers are bound to die.
On another note, how can they control access to their info? WSJ has a paying method but I'm not sure if it's working (returning enough profits). What other options are they?
RE: "Maybe this has gone so far that we will awake to the value of the human intellect and get back to valuing intelligent insight and knowledge about the news, i.e., quality journalism" - that's an utterly biased statement...how intelligent can human beings really be with bias like that? Why should I trust ANY human?
I want news that's so real & true &/or damning, that it can adversely effect the person or the views & opinions of the person reporting it. That doesn't happen with human beings. A machine will be much more likely to sacrifice itself, a human being will not because they're into this whole "self preservation" thing.
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