How can artificial intelligence assist the media? This is a question worth asking! AI arouses curiosity and fear in equal measure among the general public. However, the media world has embraced it and publications are delighted with the valuable help it provides. Let’s take a look at the ways in which it can lend a hand…
Assisting the media? First step: Facilitate documentary research
Assist journalists in their documentary research
The algorithms that now govern many aspects of our daily lives also support journalists in their documentary research through indexing and heuristic classification solutions.
Publish your data faster
Machine learning and content extraction techniques enable faster and more relevant access to sources and archives, relieving editorial assistants and journalists of the most arduous and repetitive tasks.
Generate content automatically
The notion of enhanced journalism
The use of AI for the media becomes clear with the notion of “enhanced” journalism. It dramatically increases the editorial power of journalists by automatically writing texts. By working with keywords or phrases, identifying emerging trends and the most influential topics, and aggregating disparate data, powerful writing engines can generate automated content optimized for SEO and conversion.
Free up time for pieces of greater journalistic value
The goal is to substantially reduce the workload of journalists, freeing them from writing low value-added texts, while improving the quality of content.
Analyzing and processing numerical data: this also assists the media!
Massive data processing to produce information
Another thankless task taken on by AI and its “big data” processing solutions: identifying, analyzing and exploiting masses of data (for example, the 26,000 gigs of the Panama Papers). This data processing allows AI to generate simple news, summaries of sporting events, election results and even weather reports, all in record time.
The weather example
LabSense provides a large media company with local weather forecasts for approximately fifty cities, in an automated way. This daily production in the form of a descriptive text + a visual involves a mass of tedious processing that the robo-writer consistently handles.
Tracking Fake News
Stemming the threat of fake news
Manipulating rather than informing, fake news is a hot topic! It continues to thrive and feed a growing public distrust of the media. Fortunately, trustworthy publications can now count on AI, a precious ally in this relentless crusade!
Detect suspicious and fabricated semantic patterns with AI
Artificial intelligence can indeed detect patterns of words that suggest fabricated news. It is then up to humans to fact check… And act accordingly!
Conduct in-depth audit work
The first wave of computerization in the 90s, in particular thanks to the Internet, made it a whole lot easier to check facts, quotes, sources and images. Today, AI saves a considerable amount of time! It guarantees the reliability of sources thanks to automated searches in huge databases.
Assisting the media by monitoring social networks… And feeding them
When robo-writers take the pressure off
Getting up at the crack of dawn and heading to the scene of a scoop is always an exhilarating experience for journalists true to their calling! On the other hand, spending nights monitoring social networks to track down newsworthy facts is much less exciting… which is why robot journalists can take on this role.
Robo-writers to feed social networks, really?
Not content with simply monitoring what is said online, the robots are also able to feed social media accounts, scrupulously adhering to the specific rules and formats: number of characters, hashtags, short links etc.
To summarize, let’s emphasize that AI is not here to replace the media or to deprive it of its identity. It is here to assist. It is not intended to replace the “press people”, but it can make their job easier in many ways! Sensitive to the ethics of all professions, LabSense provides the media with its ALP (automated language processing) and GAT (automated text generation) solutions. Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’d like to know more!
In short, AI can:
- Facilitate documentary research
- Generate content automatically
- Analyze and process numerical data
- Track Fake News
- Conduct in-depth audit work
- Monitor and feed social networks
