Computers write news at Thomson

First it was the typewriter, then the teleprinter. Now a US news service has found a way to replace human beings in the newsroom and is instead using computers to write some of its stories. Thomson Financial, the business information group, has been using computers to generate some stories since March and is so pleased with the results that it plans to expand the practice. The computers work so fast that an earnings story can be released within 0.3 seconds of the company making results public. ‘This is not about cost but about delivering information to our customers at a speed at which they can make an almost immediate trading decision,’ said Matthew Burkley, senior vice-president of strategy at Thomson Financial. ‘This means we can free up reporters so they have more time to think.’ Burkley said the computer-generated stories had not made any mistakes. But he said they were very standardised. ‘We might try and write a few more adjectives into the program,’ he said. (Financial Times via Ifra Executive News,August 22, 2006)

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