HIGH DEGREE OF CERTAINTY
TREND 032 • FOURTH YEAR ON THE LIST
Computational Journalism
Neura uses machine learning algo-
rithms to analyze sensor data to cre-
ate insights about end-user real-world
experiences.
© 2018-2019 FUTURE TODAY INSTITUTE
Key Insight
What are the ways in which data and
algorithms can enhance reporting?
Computer Assisted Reporting (or
CAR, as its known by industry profes-
sionals) is an investigative journalism
technique. Reporters find, clean and
mine public records and documents,
crunch data and uncover hidden
stories. Aided by machine learning
algorithms and AI, computational
journalism is the evolution of CAR.
Examples
It’s one thing to find and mine pub-
lic data—analyzing what’s there, and
connecting the seemingly uncon-
nectable dots, is another challenge
entirely. Computational journalism
techniques such as multi-language
indexing, automated reporting, entity
extraction, algorithmic visualization,
multidimensional analysis of data sets,
and flexible data scraping are allow-
ing journalists to combine what they
find in the data and then see the con-
nections between facts, keywords and
concepts. In this way, they can reveal
interconnected relationships between
people and organizations that they
might not have otherwise seen.
One modality is to harness the data
from a crowd in a technique known as
“crowdlearning.” Crowdlearning is a
computational journalism technique
that queries our passive data—our
mobile and online activity, our pub-
lic health records, our locations—to
learn or understand something new.
One company making good use of
this technique is Neura, an AI-start-
up that learns from a broad spec-
trum real-world and digital user data
throughout the day.
What’s Next
We anticipate increased demand in
computational journalism and jour-
INFORMS ACT
LONGER-TERM IMPACT
IMMEDIATE IMPACT
STRATEGY NOW
KEEP
REVISIT
VIGILANT
LATER
WATCH
LOW DEGREE OF CERTAINTY
nalists with complimentary skills sets.
There are a host of stories waiting to
be discovered, written and produced.
Watchlist
Google; Bing; Apple; Microsoft; Neura;
Investigative Reporters & Editors; Na-
tional Institute for Computer-Assisted
Reporting; Coral Project; Stanford
Computational Journalism Lab; Duke
University; University of British Co-
lumbia; University of Texas at Austin;
Brown Institute at Columbia Universi-
ty; Tow Center for Digital Journalism
at Columbia University; Philip Merrill
College of Journalism at the Universi-
ty of Maryland; Media Change and In-
novation Division at the University of
Zurich; Annenberg School of Commu-
nication & Journalism and the Univer-
sity of Southern California; Wall Street
Journal; New York Times; Washington
Post; Tamedia; ProPublica; National
Public Radio.
040