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In Case You Wondered, a Real Human Wrote This Column

nytimes.com

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Re: In Case You Wondered, a Real Human Wrote This Column

#51

Post by chc »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #22
jellicle wrote: post #19

What this article doesn't tell you is that the human who wrote it works for Narrative Science. For those who don't know, if you see a story in your local paper, and it doesn't involve a car crash, crime, weather, or sports, it was probably placed there by a PR representative. Most of the things you read are not the result of random reporters deciding to cover X or Y, but a paid, concerted effort to place story X or Y…

That's a jaded and misguided view of the world. Very few reporters will accept articles written by others, and they predominantly work for trade rags, not the New York Times.

Oh, sure, maybe they don't just accept articles written by others. But they will base things heavily off press releases. That's what press releases are there for. If reporters didn't bite, nobody in the big leagues would bother with them.

Re: In Case You Wondered, a Real Human Wrote This Column

#52

Post by gabrielroth »

jellicle wrote: post #19

What this article doesn't tell you is that the human who wrote it works for Narrative Science. For those who don't know, if you see a story in your local paper, and it doesn't involve a car crash, crime, weather, or sports, it was probably placed there by a PR representative. Most of the things you read are not the result of random reporters deciding to cover X or Y, but a paid, concerted effort to place story X or Y…

I'm not defending the story as a masterpiece of journalism or anything, and I'm sure it was pitched to the reporter by an interested party. But you shouldn't blame 'such clunkers as "To generate story 'angles,' explains Mr. Hammond of Narrative Science...." when Mr. Hammond has already been introduced earlier in the story' on PR agencies. They don't actually write the copy that runs in the NY Times. That particular clunker was probably imposed on the writer by the copy editor ("It's been a while since Hammond was referenced; we need to remind the reader who he is"), unless the author has internalized the style himself.

This story was provided, probably almost word for word, by a PR person to the NYT reporter.

Definitely not. The idea for the story was provided to the reporter, probably by a P.R. person. The reporter conducted interviews with representatives of the company, some of whom are quoted in the story and some of whom aren't. The reporter went away and wrote up the story himself. It was edited by at least one line editor and at least one copy editor. The reporter, line editor, and copy editor have all beaten many competitors to obtain jobs at the most prestigious company in their field.

If anyone at the New York Times were found to have submitted a story that was "provided ... almost word for word by a PR person" that person would be fired and the paper would issue a public apology.

Again, I'm not defending the story, and I'm sure the PR person who pitched it was thrilled by it. But, you know, Steve Lohr's byline is on this story, and you've accused him of pretty bad professional misconduct, and I don't think that's warranted.

Re: In Case You Wondered, a Real Human Wrote This Column

#54

Post by scott_s »

dsplittgerber wrote: post #23
andrewljohnson wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a jaded and misguided view of the world. Very few reporters will accept articles written by others, and they predominantly work for trade rags, not the New York Times.

Please tell me you read that article and didn't find it odd how extremely one-sided and positive it was. Also, it happens all the time. And with a publishing machine as big as the NYT, it's bound to happen there as well. Remember Jayson Blair? Different symptom, same cause.

There's a difference between PG's submarine articles and the PR person literally writing the article.

Re: In Case You Wondered, a Real Human Wrote This Column

#55

Post by bergie »

dimitar wrote: post #33
jellicle wrote: post #19

What this article doesn't tell you is that the human who wrote it works for Narrative Science. For those who don't know, if you see a story in your local paper, and it doesn't involve a car crash, crime, weather, or sports, it was probably placed there by a PR representative. Most of the things you read are not the result of random reporters deciding to cover X or Y, but a paid, concerted effort to place story X or Y…

This is true. I've been told by PR people that 80% of the content in a newspaper or a magazine is written by PR agencies. I have a question, though. Why don't they also create an expert system that writes PR pieces? I imagine it would be really nice tool for people in the business. You write down the variables (who, what, when)from an interview with a client in a form and you get to show him an instant first draft, y…

I've been told by PR people that 80% of the content in a newspaper or a magazine is written by PR agencies.

Then again, PR people have a strong commercial interest in making it appear so that only stories pitched by PR people get published.

My (few) experiences in getting stories through have been to the contrary, usually just journalists picking up something I blogged. An exotic example: http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/on_usb_fingers_and_world_news/

Re: In Case You Wondered, a Real Human Wrote This Column

#56

Post by bergie »

rdouble wrote: post #40
dimitar wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpaid interns? Ouch. I didn't think of that. Although there are hidden costs even behind unpaid labor. Office space, HR costs (hiring isn't easy), training, etc, etc.

It's not hard to hire people to write PR stuff. It's just unemployed english majors of which there are legions. There are no associated costs as the positions have no benefits and everyone works from home.

...and the interns get to say "I've written for New York Times" the next time they interview for a job. Everybody wins, as The Economist argued: http://www.economist.com/node/21528449

Re: In Case You Wondered, a Real Human Wrote This Column

#57

Post by bergie »

notahacker wrote: post #12
kiba wrote: post #6

These technological advances made me shudder about the potential job loss of the future even though the previous technological advances created new jobs. Sure, there's no way that my profession and the great majority of jobs on the internet would be possible if we rely on human switchboard operators rather than relying on automation. That doesn't mean it will be true for the next advances in technology, does it?

If the cost of producing even the sort of dry, statistics-heavy content the program presently excels at was a primary factor then we'd have outsourced it to India or the Philippines by now. You'd certainly pay less than $10 for an article like this: http://www.builderonline.com/local-housing-data/new-england/... I'm willing to believe the underlying machine learning technology is very clever, but I'm also willing to…

Fun idea: produce similar autogenerated narratives on commit activity of various open source projects

Bergie had a strong start on the office day, closing four bugs in row. Then luck turned and he broke the build...

Re: In Case You Wondered, a Real Human Wrote This Column

#58

Post by robryan »

dimitar wrote: post #38
patio11 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly right. Quick bit of advice for startups here: Last fall, the Big Ten Network began using Narrative Science for updates of football and basketball games. Those reports helped drive a surge in referrals to the Web site from Google’s search algorithm, which highly ranks new content on popular subjects, Mr. Calderon says. The network’s Web traffic for football games last season was 40 percent higher than in 2009.…

Maybe they are so good they hope Google can tell their stories from human made. Although I wouldn't bet on it.

A single article probably not, if you examine a site producing these in high volume though you would probably notice a high level of similar words and constructs used. Even just by the speed at which certain things are posted, if something is consistently the first source after something like a sporting event they are either doing a lot of pre-writing or are generated.

Re: In Case You Wondered, a Real Human Wrote This Column

#59

Post by LiveTheDream »

alexandros wrote: post #36
jgilliam wrote: post #17

If a computer had written this article, maybe it would have mentioned how useful this technology is for spammers.

I've said it before, sufficiently advanced spam is indistinguishable from content. If this comes to pass, I'm not sure who will have won the spam wars, but I'm. Inclined to say that the low end content authors will have lost it.

Relevant: http://xkcd.com/810/
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