Computational journalism can be defined as the application of computation to the activities of journalism such as information gathering, organization, sensemaking, communication and dissemination of news information, while upholding values of journalism such as accuracy and verifiability. The field draws on technical aspects of computer science including artificial intelligence, content analysis ( NLP, NLG, vision, audition), visualization, personalization and

recommender system A recommender system (RecSys), or a recommendation system (sometimes replacing ''system'' with terms such as ''platform'', ''engine'', or ''algorithm'') and sometimes only called "the algorithm" or "algorithm", is a subclass of information fi ...

s as well as aspects of social computing and information science.

History of the field

The field emerged at

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public university, public research university and Institute of technology (United States), institute of technology in Atlanta, ...

in 2006 where a course in the subject was taught by professor

Irfan Essa Irfan Aziz Essa is a professor in the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Interactive Computing, School of Interactive Computing of the Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, College of Computing, and adjunct professor in the ...

. In February 2008 Georgia Tech hosted a Symposium on Computation and Journalism which convened several hundred computing researchers and journalists in Atlanta, GA. In July 2009, The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University hosted a workshop to push the field forward. Since 2012, Columbia Journalism School has offered a course called Frontiers of Computational Journalism for the students enrolled in their dual degree in CS and journalism. The course covers many computer science topics from the perspective of journalism, including document vector space representation, algorithmic and social story selection ( recommendation algorithms), language

topic model In statistics and natural language processing, a topic model is a type of statistical model for discovering the abstract "topics" that occur in a collection of documents. Topic modeling is a frequently used text-mining tool for discovery of hidden ...

information visualization Data and information visualization (data viz/vis or info viz/vis) is the practice of designing and creating Graphics, graphic or visual Representation (arts), representations of a large amount of complex quantitative and qualitative data and i ...

knowledge representation and reasoning Knowledge representation (KR) aims to model information in a structured manner to formally represent it as knowledge in knowledge-based systems whereas knowledge representation and reasoning (KRR, KR&R, or KR²) also aims to understand, reason, and ...

social network analysis Social network analysis (SNA) is the process of investigating social structures through the use of networks and graph theory. It characterizes networked structures in terms of ''nodes'' (individual actors, people, or things within the network) ...

, quantitative and qualitative

inference Inferences are steps in logical reasoning, moving from premises to logical consequences; etymologically, the word '' infer'' means to "carry forward". Inference is theoretically traditionally divided into deduction and induction, a distinct ...

, and

information security Information security is the practice of protecting information by mitigating information risks. It is part of information risk management. It typically involves preventing or reducing the probability of unauthorized or inappropriate access to data ...

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...

launched a masters in computational journalism in 2015.

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

launched a Computational Journalism Lab in 2014, which closed in 2022. Also they created a course titled, Computational Journalism. In 2017,

the Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are distributed to its members, major ...

published a guide for newsrooms to deploy artificial intelligence and computational methods.

Applications

Over the years, computational journalism applications have involved different areas of the newsmaking process: from data gathering to the analysis of big data and their representation. In the beginning, therefore, it was more an aspect area linked to the discipline of

data science Data science is an interdisciplinary academic field that uses statistics, scientific computing, scientific methods, processing, scientific visualization, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate knowledge from potentially noisy, stru ...

, where the research and exploration of a fact may be automated. But it is just with the rise of artificial intelligence that it has become possible to explore new types of applications, even up to the automation of news writing (text generation). In this last field, there are interesting examples of application. *

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

that as early as 2017 declared to have published in a year 850 news written entirely by an artificial intelligence. *

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

, with the proprietary artificial intelligence software called "ReporterMate", an experimental automated news reporting system.

Software

Text based

Comparison of text editors This article provides basic comparisons for notable text editors. More feature details for text editors are available from the '' Category of text editor features'' and from the individual products' articles. This article may not be up-to-date or n ...

Comparison of TeX editors The following is a comparison of TeX editors. Table of editors See also * Formula editor * Comparison of word processors * Comparison of text editors * Comparison of desktop publishing software * List of TeX extensions *Chemical structure ...

Comparison of word processors This is a comparison of word processor programs. General information This table provides general information about selected word processor programs. Characteristics This table gives characteristics of each word processor program. Operatin ...

List of chatbots A chatbot is a software application or web interface that is designed to mimic human conversation through text or voice interactions. Modern chatbots are typically online and use generative artificial intelligence systems that are capable of maint ...

* STORM (AI Tool)

Visualizations

List of 2D graphics software This is a list of 2D graphics software. List See also * 3D computer graphics * Comparison of raster graphics editors * Comparison of vector graphics editors * List of 2D animation software * List of digital art software * Graphics tablet * V ...

List of information graphics software This is a list of software to create any kind of information graphics: * either includes the ability to create one or more infographics from a provided data set * either it is provided specifically for information visualization Vector graphics ...

Comparison of geographic information systems software This is a comparison of notable GIS software. To be included on this list, the software must have a linked existing article. The selection of GIS software is a non-trivial task typically undertaken at project commencement. The use of appropriate ...

List of statistical software The following is a list of statistical software. Open-source * ADaMSoft – a generalized statistical software with data mining algorithms and methods for data management * ADMB – a software suite for non-linear statistical modeling based on ...

List of video editing software The following is a list of video editing software. The criterion for inclusion in this list is the ability to perform non-linear video editing. Most modern transcoding software supports transcoding a portion of a video clip, which would count as ...

Datawrapper

Related fields

Database journalism Database journalism or structured journalism is a principle in information management whereby news content is organized around structured pieces of data, as opposed to news stories. See also Data journalism Communication scholar Wiebke Loosen de ...

Computer-assisted reporting Computer-assisted reporting describes the use of computers to gather and analyze the data necessary to write news stories. The spread of computers, software and the Internet changed how reporters work. Reporters routinely collect information in dat ...

Data-driven journalism Data journalism or data-driven journalism (DDJ) is journalism based on the filtering and analysis of large data sets for the purpose of creating or elevating a news story. Data journalism reflects the increased role of numerical data in the p ...

(extending the focus of data investigation to a workflow from data analysis to data visualization to storytelling based on the findings)

Resources

Chapter on Computational Journalism in ''Handbook of Journalism Studies 2nd Ed''.

Columbia University Computational Journalism course

Computational+Journalism courses at Georgia Tech

A computational journalism reading list by Jonathan Stray of the Associated Press

''Communications of the ACM'', October 2011, "Computational Journalism"

How Artificial Intelligence Will Impact Journalism by Francesco Marconi of the Associated Press

References

{{Reflist Types of journalism Computational science Computational fields of study