Lei Xiangping

    lagon235@163.com

    RECENTLY, my WeChat Moments page was bombarded by an article entitled “Tencent’s website (www.qq.com) is employing robots to write news and media professionals will possibly be replaced in the near future.” Many media professionals in my WeChat contact list replied, “The Doomsday for media professionals is drawing near” when sharing this article.

    As a news editor working at a traditional radio station, I have heard stories regarding media professionals converting to other occupations like PR executive thanks to the overwork-and-underpay dilemma of this profession, but I had never heard that media professionals would be superseded by robots one day.

    The more I learn about robots-assisted journalism, the more reasonable my peers’ fears become. The initial part of the bad news is that Tencent’s news website in August posted economic news that was fluent and logical, without any grammar mistakes, by a news-writing robot developed by Tencent.

    With a sophisticated computer algorithm, the robot can edit the writing, fact-check it and push the finished piece to users’ smartphones and computers within a minute. It seems that robot-assisted journalism is becoming so trendy that many media professionals are losing confidence in the future of their careers.

    However, does the introduction of journalism robots really mean that Doomsday for professional journalists is around the corner? Can news robots be qualified interviewers and write cover stories for The Economist and Time?

    The answers to both questions are obviously no. News-writing robots have their evident limitations and journalism is a creative endeavor that needs innovative brains.

    Actually, based on the current level of processing human languages with computing algorithms, news-writing robots can only write urgent news stories based on news releases, which have to be written in a standard form the robots can read first. For example, to write news pieces regarding the latest economic performance data, fluctuations in the global stock market or the evolution of an NBA tournament game, robots can efficiently grab related information from a database and organize it into a news article, which is the very reason why more and more news organizations are introducing robots to specially write finance news and sports news.

    Nevertheless, news-writing robots cannot work in situations that require a human’s ingenuity and intellect. For example, investigative journalists have to use logic to analyze key facts from multiple sources and develop a social network to reach interviewees who can provide important information. Sometimes the journalist must visit various locations to get information firsthand. The investigative documentary “Under the Dome” by former CCTV journalist Chai Jing, a very influential news production, illustrates how in-depth journalism simply couldn’t be done by a robot.

    Before Tencent, many foreign news organizations applied computer technology in the newsroom. Thomson Financial began using robots in 2006, and its senior vice president Mathew Burkley once said, “Using robots helps quickly provide real-time information to customers, facilitates decision making and emancipates journalists from daily trivialities like writing urgent news and gives them more time to do something innovative.”

    Instead of corrupting their jobs, news robots can be an effective auxiliary tool for media staff. With robots automatically editing and writing news pieces, journalists will have more time to dig for in-depth information and meticulously analyze data. Even www.qq.com said it employed news robots to unburden their staff and give them a chance to do more challenging work.

    Some media professionals who hyped up the would-be threat of news robots are a little bit pessimistic about the future of the media industry. Indeed, China’s media industry is experiencing growing pains thanks to constant technological changes, and many media gurus like CCTV anchor Lang Yongchun are leaving for other industries in what was dubbed an industry “winter.”

    In an era of unlimited information, media professionals can’t satiate themselves with just editing news and checking facts, which can be done neatly by robots. Media workers who oppose news robots are similar to a bricklayer who builds his house brick by brick without thinking about what the house will look like. They should be a house designer who knows what structure and style best suit the customer.

    The media technology revolution is a good thing if media professionals understand and adjust to it properly. With the help of news robots, media professionals who have core competencies such as expertise in a certain area and meticulous logic, and can write creatively and think critically, will never be replaced by robots; instead, they will see a brighter future.

    (The author is an editor with the News Desk at China Radio International.)