We’ve become suspicious of tech. Once obscure issues like the design of news recommendation systems and the evaluation of criminal justice risk scoring methods have become major public conversations. This new scrutiny of technical systems with social impact is well deserved — but that doesn’t mean that we get to be sloppy when investigating the power of algorithms.
The journalistic investigation of the politics of code, sometimes called algorithmic accountability reporting, is one of the more complicated types of reporting to do. The interactions between the technical and the social are intricate. Covering California’s SB 10 bill, which mandates the use of pre-trial statistical risk assessment, requires an understanding of both machine learning error rates and the contentious politics of bail reform. The New York Times tried to make the case that increased social media use in Germany is correlated with more violent attacks on refugees, but the “landmark” study they relied on was actually a preliminary paper. Subsequent analysis suggests that the truth might end up turning on the number of people in the Facebook Nutella group, which the researchers used as a proxy for social media use generally. This stuff is tricky — and because the stakes are so high, everyone has strong opinions.
I’ve already seen several cringe-worthy examples of simplistic, unfounded, or just plain biased reporting on algorithms, including misleading pieces from both tech cheerleaders and tech skeptics. In the hopes of seeing better work in the future, here are a few tips on getting an algorithm story right.
Like any serious journalism, algorithmic accountability reporting requires expertise, curiosity, and dedication to the truth. Increased skepticism of our robot overlords is a good thing, but it doesn’t get to play by different standards than any other investigative journalism.
Jonathan Stray is a computational journalist teaching and researching at Columbia University’s School of Journalism.
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
AX Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”