The Journalism Biz

The Story Recently

The Journalism Biz Nov 18th 2012, 22:37 Storytelling – How to Out-Human the Machines   Kellie Baldwin The act of story-telling is an art form central to the human existence. As long as there have been people, there has existed a desire to communicate with one another, to share thoughts and ideas, to teach and give advice, to pass down stories from generation to generation. "We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up at night, telling itself stories." – Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal. And yet, as is the case with so many other industries, technology is finding a way to move in and become even more human. A Chicago-based startup, Narrative Science has developed a software that can "scan a data set, detect significance, and tell a story based on facts." In a data-heavy world, readers are constantly overcome with numbers and spreadsheets. While data is valuable, it's not in its most efficiently valuable form in its raw state. Instead, it needs to be processed, analyzed, and interpreted before it can be read and understood by a mass audience.    According to The Atlantic, Narrative Science CTO, Kris Hammond, says their vision is to make things easier to read. "In the long run, our technology ends up being the mediator between data and the human experience." One of Narrative Science's top clients is Forbes, who uses the technology to create "computer-generated company earnings previews." In a nutshell, the platform sorts through stock data to create profiles on trending and successful companies. Not only can numbers and figures overwhelm and overload readers, they're bogging down journalists as well. There is simply too much data-based information in the world for a reporter to ever sift through, let alone in a timely matter in order to meet a deadline for a story. Technologies, like the development at Narrative Science may prove to be a useful ally for journalists covering the data beat. It may also serve journalists in the realm of sports as well. In fact, that's exactly where Narrative Science first used their innovative platform. According to Wired, last year the software created almost400,000 reviews of little league baseball games, a number which is dwarfed by this year's estimate of 1.5 million. This new innovation may very well bring about a mixed bag of emotions. Reporters might view the technology with excitement – at last, no more scouring for hours over spreadsheets or sports statistics! Yet there may also be concerns that perhaps this is the first step in a move towards automated journalism, thereby replacing writing jobs for those in the industry. But journalists should not worry. There still remain vast amounts of stories to be told that are not number-centered. As well as Narrative Science's software may mimic the human voice, it is not human. People still remain at the heart of storytelling – the choice of topics, the sources, the interviews, the creativity – and that can never be replaced. Source: http://www.thejournalismbiz.com/2012/11/storytelling-howto-out-human-machines.html

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