AP robots to write business stories

AP will use robots to write some business stories | Poynter.: "....“We flipped the standard content creation model on its head,” Automated Insights CEO Robbie Allen told Poynter’s Sam Kirkland earlier this year. “The standard way of creating content is, ‘I hope a million people read this.’ Our model is the inverse of that. We want to create a million pieces of content with one individual reading each copy.” The stories will begin in July. They’ll be labeled “as being produced automatically with material from Zacks,” Ferrara writes." (read more at the link above)

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Anonymous sources, New York Times, Washington Post

The source may be anonymous, but the shame is all yours | Jack Shafer: "....Instead of condemning the Times for so recklessly depending on anonymous sources, I’d rather praise them for reminding readers why they should discount anything a shadowy unknown source is allowed to say in a news story. Shielded from public accountability and defended by the journalists who rely on them, anonymous sources pretty much have their way with the New York Times and Washington Post, which tend to rely more heavily on them than other print outlets. In the past four days, the Post cited unnamed sources in at least 18 pieces and the Times did the same in 17 stories ranging from the Iraq civil war to a smartphone app that predicts what a user will type next...."

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Jorge Ramos: Reporters Cozy with Power, Act Like They’re in a Club

Jorge Ramos: Reporters ‘Cozy with Power,’ Act Like They’re in a Club | Mediaite: “You turn on the TV, and you see very bland interviews. Journalists in the United States are very cozy with power, very close to those in power. They laugh with them. They go to the [White House] correspondents’ dinner with them. They have lunch together. They marry each other. They’re way too close to each other. I think as journalists we have to keep our distance from power. I’m not seeing tough questions asked on American television. I’m not seeing those correspondents that would question those in power. It’s like a club. We are not asking the tough questions.” - Jorge Ramos

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Edward Snowden on why Glenn Greenwald

Exclusive: Edward Snowden on Why He Partnered With Glenn Greenwald: The Q: GQ: "Glenn is a rare kind of American writer. He had been passionately writing on constitutional issues, national security, and problematic interpretations of government authority for years, but what made him stand out was his was complete independence from the "access journalism" problem. Journalists and editors who rely on a stream of authorized leaks worry about being blacklisted, so they suspend their critical faculties - by dropping damning context from stories, using euphemisms like "enhanced interrogation techniques" instead of "torture," and so on. Anyone who reads a Greenwald piece can see he that doesn't allow those kinds of political edits, and that's precisely the kind of commitment to truth that I knew these stories would require."

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