ReporterBot

Swept up by the roomba vacuuming at the CES.

In today's ever faster news cycles, automation of electronic media publishing is a crucial element to organizational survival and profitability.

We decided to publish the outline for a system that can generate run-of-the-mill news reports as reliably as many journalists.

The main components of the ReporterBot system include:

1) Factoid mining using Big Data technology
You know it is big because both words start with a capital letter.

2) Text database software
Packages already in use for "controlled language" authoring environments, for instance, in the airplane industry. These packages only require minor tweaks for use in newsrooms.

3) A cloud computing strength version of sentence generators
You may have encountered precursors in your teens as "management phrase generator" or "office phrase generator".

4) A cheap English-speaking copy editor for the human touch
For languages other than English, local talent can be substituted. For example, East German editors can be employed to handle all news in German.

Does it work?

Yes, some of our blog posts have been generated by an early alpha version of the system. The alpha version consists of working versions of items 1 (commonly referred to as Google) and 4 (a cheap near native editor) of the full system.