What Is News in theInteractive Era?Algorithm-Generated NewsDaniel X. O’NeilCo-Founder and People Person EveryBlock

OutlineWhere I’m coming fromDefinition of newsEveryBlockAlgorithm-generated newsRole of traditional reporters is huge (war is over if you want to)User contributions, more broadly defined

My backgroundCo-founder of EveryBlockResponsible for content acquisitionData from governments (crime, inspections, 311, permits, etc.)Partnerships (reviews, coupons, etc.)Poet (English and Anthropology in college, no journalism degree)Working exclusively on the Web since 1998I am a journalist

What is news?Same as it ever wasThe answer to the question, “what happened”?Never more valuable than it is nowIt is gathered and delivered through some different processes (though they’re not as new as we’d like to think)Expansiveness in distribution

Lots of Automatic StuffFeatured neighborhoodCity mapAll data scraped without anyone thinking about itThe totals are updated, pages are created, charts are renderedEtc.

Humans“An increasing amount of news and information will be produced not by traditional reporters and news organizations but rather enabled by new technologies that enable information to be generated, organized and located via technologies that require little, if any, human intervention”

Humans are everywhereThe idea of pure machine-generation just isn’t trueDecades of GPS– drawing roads by handMillions of hours of enterprise-style software development in government departmentsCops answering 911 callsPeople caring to callHandwritten police reports

An exampleDemolition Hold ListLots of human gymnastics in the “algorithm”ToolsTextWrangler– formatting text from the sourceOpenOffice-- any spreadsheet software like Excel will doHostmonsterw/ Fantastico-- a cheap Web host with super-easy-to-install open source tools includedWordPress-- powerful, flexible publishing platform that is sophisticated for smart people and forgiving of the rest of usTransmit-- need some way to transfer files onto your server"Importing Posts from CSV file into Wordpress" thingy-- invaluableGoogle Docs-- for sharing spreadsheets and syndicating RSS updates to the sheetVersionista-- a good way to monitor Web pages that don't have an RSS feedYahoo! Pipes-- the inevitable hoop-jumping hoo-ha

Traditional reporters are essentialThink in skills rather than methodsVery stuck, and not in a good wayIt used to just be going to the PR dark sideBut there are a *ton* of jobs real journalists can fill better than anyone else

Journalists are better than other peopleMilitary intelligence– why not?Corporate intelligence– spiked storiesData gathering redux– hotel meetingsThis is already done in the magazine article/ books worldJulie/ Julia – Salon BlogsDavid AxelrodLoosen

Users“User participation and response increasingly is shaping the news agenda, how stories are covered and the way ‘audience participation’”

We are all usersWe’re not in the audienceWe’re participating in our livesIt’s the most natural thing I can think ofStart thinking more about the 4th estateElection coverage is a boonWhat if we always cared?What if everyone were always engaged in their government processes?Tim O’Reilly – Gov 2.0 movementNews organizations have a role here

Quality“Are we are getting the same quality of journalism that was produced by conventional means? Is it worse? Or is it better?”

Not relevantNot to be iconoclastic, but it’s time to move onDo good work and stop gazing at navelsInvestExperimentDoAnd do it at the journalist level, if it’s not possible to do it on the enterprise level