When the earth rumbles during the night in California with one of the area\u2019s regular earthquakes, Los Angeles Times reporter Ken Schwencke doesn\u2019t have to rush to file a story any more.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because his newspaper has a Quakebot, which writes up a quick, first version of the story with basic details, like the strength of the temblor.<\/p>\n
The first such reports have only just been released to the public and, for some readers, no difference is readily apparent. In the Californian case, the computer picked up information made available online from the US Geological Survey.<\/p>\n
It only takes seconds for the computer to drop the data into a template and release it to the newspaper\u2019s readers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis lends itself anywhere where you use the same text building blocks and it\u2019s only the data that changes,\u201d says Berlin-based social media expert Frederik Fischer.<\/p>\n
He says writing software is slowly going to become a normal part of the media landscape. After all, journalism has long made use of automated reporting in niche areas such as weather, stock markets and sports.<\/p>\n
US firm Narrative Science is one of the providers of such services, creating documents from data.<\/p>\n
US magazine Forbes already uses its services for its financial reports. In Germany, Stuttgart-based company Aexea also promises to create high-quality documents with its \u201cnews machine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thus, during a basketball game, the computer wouldn\u2019t just look at the point total, but also at past game reports.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could look at whether the top scorer had disappointed,\u201d says prototype designer Frank Feulner.<\/p>\n
The company says it could even generate specific articles for fans of certain teams or players without too much trouble.<\/p>\n
Feulner says he has already received feelers from publishing companies. A study by the Swedish university Karlstad found that computer-generated news was more boring to read, but not to the extent that readers noticed it was not written by a human.<\/p>\n
That means the computers might one day take some hard work off human reporters\u2019 hands \u2013 or even replace them.<\/p>\n
After all, Quakebot never gets tired and never takes vacation. \u201cIf technology will help them to see savings, then they\u2019ll do it,\u201d saidFischer about the publishers.<\/p>\n
Still, there are limits to the technology. Quakebot can neither take a picture of the destruction, ask for expert opinions or seek out witness reports.<\/p>\n
A computer programme would certainly never have uncovered the Watergate scandal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nonsense that a robot will fill up the newspaper,\u201d said Fischer. Computer linguist Manfred Stede from Germany\u2019s Potsdam University agrees.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe added value of journalism is that it assesses facts and doesn\u2019t just pass them along.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schwencke, who also created Quakebot, still checks his robot\u2019s output before publishing it. He told online magazine Slate that, when he was shaken out of bed by an earthquake one morning, the story was already waiting for him at his computer. But it was Schwencke who pushed the button and sent the story out.<\/p>\n