Robo Reporter

Your Humble Blogger recalls a journalism class in his distant past entitled Mechanics of Expression. An unexciting title for a class, but at least it was taught by an actual human being.

Last week, the Los Angeles Times began a new era of robo reporting. A Times story about the small earthquake we experienced on St. Patrick's Day was written by something called "Quakebot." The humans are still in control of editing. For now.

NPR reports.

Questions...

•Does it matter who or what reports the news?

•What other news stories are formulatized?

•In what parts of journalism do you really need a human being?