ABSTRACT
On the morning of March 17, 2014, a 4.7 magnitude earthquake struck Los
Angeles. Three minutes after the rumbling stopped, one of the first news accounts
appeared on the website of the Los Angeles Times. Although short and factual in tone,
the speedy article was notable for its author: a computer program dubbed Quakebot
(Slate, March 17, 2014). This was an example of automated journalism in which a pro-
gram turns data into a news narrative, made possible with limited-or even zero-
human input. Various examples of automated journalism have begun to emerge: the
Los Angeles Times uses another program to report on homicide, the Washington Post
has developed TruthTeller to automatically fact-check political speeches in real time,
and two companies-Automated Insights and Narrative Science-market automated
news content products to a growing number of news outlets.
