Bots doing the reporting now

 

L.A. Times Journalist Explains How a Bot Wrote His Earthquake Story for Him – 
[Via The Wire]

At 6:25 a.m. Pacific Time on Monday morning, a 4.4-magnitude earthquake hit near Los Angeles. By 6:33, the Los Angeles Times became one of the first outlets to report the quake online. But it turns out they had a little help.

Database producer Ken Schwencke got the byline, but an interesting footnote told a different story: 

This information comes from the USGS Earthquake Notification Service and this post was created by an algorithm written by the author.

[More]

How long before reporters are not even needed any more? Most of them are pretty useless anyway, simply stenographers for press releases. As seen here, an algorithm could do just as well.