Over two years ago, in June 2015, a first in technology/journalism occurred on the Isle of Wight.
Following work with Island-resident Tony Hirst, OnTheWight published the first local news article that had been generated (‘written’) by a computer programme based on Government data.
For a while it was a bit of a Wow within the world of journalism, leading to articles and speaking slots at conferences discussing the future of the news industry.
Back on the leading edge
Fast forward to today: OnTheWight is proud to now announce a new collaboration, this time with Urbs Media and the Press Association. Urbs/PA have expanded the range of data and stories that are covered in its generated articles.
The articles are still in bulk created automatically after the structure of the piece has been created by a journalist who has studied the data.
In a little while OnTheWight will be running the first article which is a product of this new project.
We hope this will enable OnTheWight to report on subjects that might otherwise not have been touched, while free us a little to focus our time in other areas.
Image: ralphhogaboom under CC BY 2.0
