In 2018, you will be scooped by a reporter using artificial intelligence.
Four years ago, ProPublica’s Scott Klein predicted “you will be scooped by a reporter who knows how to program.” And you were.
In the months ahead, some of those journo-programmers — and probably some grad students looking for strong, unique projects — will break big stories using machine learning. These will be important truths and facts invisible to humans alone.
I’m not talking about computer-generated stories about earthquakes, earnings reports, or sports scores. These will be stories on your beat, written by humans who understand how to use machine learning to aid their reporting.
It’s already happening:
Over the past year, conversations around AI and journalism often ventured into worries about artificial intelligence being deployed to replace reporters. But in the new year, we’ll be talking about how often reporters deployed artificial intelligence to land big stories.
John Keefe is a developer in the Quartz Bot Studio.
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Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
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Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
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José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
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Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
AX Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists