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