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