Login
close
Login is restricted to DCN Publisher Members. If you are a DCN Member and don't have an account, register here.
Search

Digital Content Next logo

Menu

Articles by: "Francesco Marconi, Strategy Manager—The Associated Press"

Innovation

Can machine learning detect “fake news” ?

While artificial intelligence can help newsrooms build a consistent fake news detector, it can also empower others to disseminate and even create new forms of misinformation.

Fake news is nothing new. The Roman Emperor Augustus led a campaign of misinformation against Mark Antony, a rival politician and general. The KGB used disinformation throughout the Cold War to enhance its political standing. Today fake news continues to serve as a political tool around the world, and new technologies are enabling individuals to propagate that fake news at unprecedented rates.

One of those new developments, artificial intelligence, can help journalists build a consistent fake news detector, but AI can also empower others to disseminate and even create new forms of misinformation. To understand how, we need to take a quick detour and explain machine learning — one of the most important sub-domains of artificial intelligence

Detecting Fake News with Machine Learning

Machine learning is, in the most basic sense, a system that learns from its actions and makes decisions accordingly, and it relies in turn on a process called deep learning which breaks down a single complex idea into a series of smaller, more approachable tasks.

Thus, conceptually, machine learning can help detect fake news! An intelligent system that takes news stories as its input and a big ol’ ‘Fake’ or ‘Not Fake’ sticker as output.

Machine learning (and deep-learning) relies mostly on algorithms, a set of rules that when followed leads to a desired output. But constructing algorithms is exceptionally difficult and the results can be catastrophic, especially when we rely on them to determine what news stories should be broadcast to our readers.

Algorithms Make Mistakes

The two most common errors in this sort of machine learning are terms that we borrow from statisticians — Type I (false negative) and Type II (false positive) errors.

A false negative would mean that your machine labels a fake news item as not fake. We don’t want that.

A false positive means your machine labels a real news story as fake. We don’t want that, either.

What we want is a system that can, with a high level of accuracy, label fake news as being fake, and real stories as not being fake. Again, we ask: How?

Using news articles to train the AI

AI machines can best make decisions like what is and is not fake news when you define fake and real news — you do so by showing the machine tens of thousands of examples of each.

For that, you will need a data set of high quality journalism, as well as another collection with a sample of fake news, which could be sourced from a predetermined list of fake news.

The AI Journalist

Remember, algorithms are written by humans, and humans make errors. Therefore, our AI machine may well make an error, especially in its early stages.

There’s also an editorial decision to be made here. No system is going to be 100 percent accurate, so which would you rather tend towards, false positives or false negatives? Would you rather a fake story be labeled as real or would you rather have a real story labeled fake?

Algorithmic errors aside, AI can help detect fake news. But as we mentioned earlier AI can also help disseminate it (all the more reason to understand AI, then!)

A New Wave of “Fake-news”?

If you’ve worked in the journalism industry long enough you’ve probably been fooled by a doctored video, photo or sound bite. And every day the technology available to produce those fake news items is becoming easier to use and more publicly accessible. For instance, Adobe recently announced an AI project that is able to replicate the same tone of voice by simply analyzing a sample of a speech, while a project developed by Stanford University researchers enables the manipulation of someone’s face in a video in real time.

In other words, the same sorts of machine learning and sub-domains of AI that can be used to fight fake news can also be used by others to propagate new types of misinformation.

The conclusion: Journalists need to understand AI.

Innovation

A voice-enabled journalism primer

As we start communicating with smart devices such as Amazon’s Echo and Google Home, how will this technology impact news audiences? How will news consumers be able to use voice commands to access stories on demand?

In 1899, The Associated Press used Guglielmo Marconi’s wireless telegraph to cover the America’s Cup yacht race in New Jersey, the first news transmission test of what would later be called “radio.” Today, the media industry is once again enabling the exploration of audio news – this time in a new field: voice-activated technologies.

From point-and-click to voice-enabled commands
The internet used to be in a “point-and-click” phase where desktop websites flourished, but now it’s in a “touch” phase as mobile devices and apps have increased digital access to content and services.

Soon, voice commands will usher in a third phase through the “internet of things” and all types of connected devices and experiences. These commands carry promise and the potential to link the fragmented on-demand experiences we see emerging in connected cars, homes and voice assistants.

Global revenue estimates from the smart audio market have increased to $5 billion by 2020, up from $1 billion this year, according to Juniper Research. Devices in our homes (think smart refrigerators) are forecasted to be the biggest driver of growth.

“Audio is a powerful interface for connected ecosystems,” said Mari Joller, founder and CEO of voice-technology company Scarlet. “Other than being efficient – your hands and eyes are free – and often the only viable option for certain use cases like driving, it is also perhaps the most human way to communicate information.”

How do voice-activated systems work?
While these devices can recognize that someone is speaking to them, they cannot necessarily understand what those words mean. The challenging part appears when the system needs to make sense of “What did the president say today?” That requires natural language processing, which is driven by definitions and relationships between words.

The most fascinating opportunity involving natural language processing is the ability to ask specific questions and receive answers. In order to deliver, a smart device needs to analyze the words in a question, retrieve the right answer from a specific data set such as a news archive or feed (like weather forecasts or sports scores), and finally utilize text-to-speech technology to speak back to the user.

It’s likely that news consumers will be able to stop and rewind specific stories on demand in the future. For example, if I asked, “I heard there was an earthquake today. Can you tell me more about it?,” a device would be able to surface a relevant news article or video and then play it to me on command.

AmazonEcho“It’s a very exciting time for voice assistants and on-demand audio news,” said Tom Januszewski, a director of business development with AP. “The Amazon Echo, in particular, has surprised everyone with its broad acceptance, and the large number of news organizations already participating on the platform.

“It shows these news organizations recognize the importance of the technology and that they want to get in early.”

What are the ethics surrounding voice-enabled platforms?
According to Victor Vina, an assistant professor at the Pratt Institute, these smart devices raise the idea of “ubiquitous computing,” where we’re surrounded by technology without even realizing it. But we still know very little about the psychological effects of using these devices.

“What are the benefits to our personal lives?” he asked. “As artificial intelligence evolves, it is crucial to consider values such as empathy, identity and privacy, in addition to intelligence, efficiency and productivity.”

As this technology advances, more media organizations will be experimenting to find what works best for delivering news on such devices.

Francesco Marconi (@fpmarconi) is the manager of strategy and corporate development at The Associated Press and an Innovation Fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University.

Innovation | Perspectives

What artificial intelligence can do for journalists and newsrooms

Artificial intelligence can help journalists automatically adapt stories to the
personalities, moods and locations of their readers.

The news and information ecosystem is in the midst of change — again.

Mobile-first consumption is on the rise, smart homes are becoming mainstream and connected cars will soon take over the roads of major cities around the world.

Smart devices will require “smart content”. It’s only a matter of time before artificial intelligence becomes the backbone of the media industry of the future.

A change in how we interact with news
Today, most people find information via search or social. And while these two channels are radically different in functionality, they have one thing in common — any given article surfaced through these platforms is exactly the same for everyone in the world.

For example, The New York Times article, “Health Officials Split Over Advice on Pregnancy in Zika Areas,” reads the same to me, a 20-something male living in New York, and for an expecting mother in her mid-30s residing in Rio de Janeiro.

Content today is one size fits all. And why wouldn’t it be?  A journalist writes a story hoping to reach as many people as possible.

Search and social help tailor information choices to individuals to a degree, but Google, Facebook and Twitter know that artificial intelligence will fundamentally change the equation. That’s why, since 2013, these companies have been investing substantial resources into the space and acquiring startups.

Figure1

In Facebook Messenger, for example, several news organization such as CNN and The Wall Street Journal are already using bots and some level of automation to deliver news through the platform.

Beyond automation: What is artificial intelligence?
Artificial intelligence understands the environment it operates in and performs certain actions as a result of it. AI seeks to learn what its users want and how they want it.

In the specific case of news media, articles can be processed through algorithms that analyze readers’ locations, social media posts and other publicly available data. They can then be served content tailored to their personality, mood and social economic status, among other things.

AI allows journalists and media companies to create infinite versions of an article, resulting in increasingly relevant information that speaks directly to individuals — ultimately forming a more engaged audience.

Examples of artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation in content creation
Crystal is a program that adapts emails you write to the personality of recipients. For example, if you’re sending a note to a more laid-back person, the software suggests a change in tone from a formal introduction such as “Dear John” to a more colloquial “Hi” or “Hey.”

Figure2Crystal uses previous emails to that recipient as well as their social media posts to recommend certain language, tone and sentiment. It’s easy to see how this approach can be adapted for a newsroom –in fact, it can build off of pioneering efforts already underway such as automated earnings reports by The Associated Press.

Artificial intelligence can even localize stories. If you live in California, you might not read a story entitled “Texas residents poisoned by toxic waste plant for years.” But if the story included an automated note highlighting a similar past incident in your city, you would probably be more inclined to look at it.

The future of journalism powered by artificial intelligence
Beyond tailoring content to users, AI can help journalists do more investigative work by analyzing massive sets of data and pointing to relationships not easily visible to even the most experienced reporter.

While this technology can improve efficiencies in newsrooms, though, it should work in tandem with journalists, not replace them. Going forward, the challenge will be to make sure we continue to adhere to our standards and ethics.

What will the future of news will look like when it becomes powered by AI? We will soon find out.

I’m the Strategy Manager for The Associated Press and fellow at Columbia Journalism School. I write about media, storytelling and innovation. Let’s connect. (@fpmarconi)

Innovation | Perspectives

Beyond the ‘valleys and alleys’ to find media innovation

History reminds us that often, some of the most impactful ideas in the media industry were inspired and developed not in valleys or alleys, but in ivory towers.
Samuel Morse with his recorder, photograph taken by Mathew Brady in 1857 cc wikicommons 
Samuel Morse with his recorder, photograph taken by Mathew Brady in 1857 cc wikicommons

Today, most of us view Silicon Valley and Alley as the hubs of disruptive technology and the successful start-ups born and raised there as the leaders in a quickly evolving industry that will continue to revolutionize the world. But history reminds us that often, some of the most impactful ideas — specifically, those in the journalism and media industry — were inspired and developed not in valleys or alleys, but in ivory towers (aka universities).

Many of us may know that Samuel Morse pioneered the commercialization of the telegraph in the U.S., but we may not know the inspiration behind his research: the work of his friend, electromagnetism researcher, Charles Jackson.

William Paley, the broadcasting tycoon responsible for the early success of American media staple Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), injected innovation in his business with the introduction of color television — specifically, the field sequential color system — developed by Peter Carl Goldmark, a scholar at University of Vienna who later led CBS Laboratories.

Jonah Peretti, a father of social content, used his research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in tandem with key learnings from the field of network science developed by his friend, then Professor Duncan Watts, to create BuzzFeed.

Jonah Peretti, Photo Courtesy of The Associated Press
Jonah Peretti, Photo Courtesy of The Associated Press

These real-world examples illustrate that innovation is, in some cases, the application of academic research. Morse, Paley and Peretti tapped into the knowledge hub of academia to disrupt the market, launch new businesses and discover creative solutions to existing challenges. For those of us in today’s media industry, these examples should remind us to not simply look toward Silicon Valley for solving tomorrow’s problems, but rather universities that stay grounded with a longer-term approach.

Two types of Innovation

The futures lab can be seen inside the Reynolds Journalism Institute on the campus of the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. Photo courtesy of the Reynolds Journalism Institute.
The challenge of industry-academia collaborations stems from the existence of two types of innovation: the innovation of media practitioners and firms, and the innovation of academia — one looks for answers to specific problems, the other aims at the creation of knowledge.

The solution is to develop a third approach — a mutually beneficial approach to research and development wherein incentives and timelines are aligned and projects are those that look at exploring high value concepts and challenges on behalf of a media firm, yet outside of the company’s mainstream activities. This challenge is broad enough to appeal to an academic, but still has the real world impact potential a media practitioner and/or firm is looking for. New fields such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence and automation are some of the prime candidates for this model.

For professors, the goal is to prepare their students to be well-equipped for their post-educational careers.

“More than ever, journalism education needs to focus on experiential, project-based learning.”
—Reynolds Journalism Institute futures lab director Mike McKean.

Collaborative research projects require open lines of communication between universities and media organizations so they can better address the challenges faced by both parties.

“Students will be the industry’s future leaders — and consumers — so it’s essential that as news organizations experiment with new formats and techniques, they’re doing so in a way that’s relevant to new generations.”
—AP interactives editor Nathan Griffiths.

Universities gain an avenue to apply insights learned in the classroom while professionals are exposed to new thinking.

“Journalists can learn from students about younger audiences — how they consume news and the best ways to engage them.”
—Berkeley Lovelace Jr., a journalism student who recently worked on project with the Associated Press.

Academic-infused Innovation

Facilitating partnerships do not require significant investments, especially compared to the addition of a new academic department or a new research lab within a company.

One such initiative is an experiment The New York Times run in partnership with NYU and CUNY to study hyper local news. Another is Hearst Corporation’s partnership with students from Parsons New School of Design to develop Glossy.io, a new approach to surfacing archives of digital magazines.

Students at Columbia Journalism School test AP’s latest virtual reality experiment.
Students at Columbia Journalism School test AP’s latest virtual reality experiment.

The Associated Press runs research programs with the Columbia Journalism School and the Missouri School of Journalism to investigate new fields such as virtual reality experiment and automation.

This academic-practitioner partnership approach to research could be a new model for innovation. History and present day initiatives like those above reveal that when academics and practitioners work together to analyze data and apply key findings, impactful insights are formed, innovative strategies are implemented and new businesses are catalyzed.

Indeed, innovating our approach to media innovation — looking beyond valleys and alleys to ivory towers — will be worth our while.

I’m the Strategy Manager for The Associated Press and fellow at Columbia Journalism School. I write about media, storytelling and innovation. Let’s connect. (@fpmarconi)

Perspectives

Get ready for “concierge” media

There is an untapped distribution channel for publishers to create private,
intimate and tailored relationships with the audiences they serve.

NBCnewsPeople have always had the desire to be informed. In the pre-industrial society, news was limited to conversations and gatherings. The arrival of pamphlets, edicts, ballads, journals and the first newssheets allowed information to spread regionally, while the Internet, social networks, smartphones and messaging apps instantaneously push data globally.

In particular, messaging apps also provide an untapped distribution channel for publishers to create private, intimate and tailored relationships with the audiences they serve — a concierge media service.

From search to social to messaging

Since the recent advent of the Internet, publishers have been trying to leverage distribution channels — such as search and social media — to grow their audiences. Huffington Post saw immense growth by mastering the art of search engine optimization and BuzzFeed capitalized on social sharing to become the media brand everyone talks about.

A significant opportunity for the next generation of media companies will come from knowing how to play in messaging apps. For journalists, brands and media creators, that means reimagining how they create content, how they engage users and how they generate revenue.

Messaging is ubiquitous in our lives. Apps can provide unique opportunities for giving audiences direct access to content and publishers, be it through tailor-made WeChat platforms or public chats on Viber and WhatsApp.

Why concierge media will become the way audiences consume content by 2020

Mobile messaging and chat apps will explode.
According to ComScore’s 2015 U.S. Mobile App Report, Millennials spent the majority of their time (over 90 hours a month) on smartphone apps. And guess what services they use the most? Messaging and social networks.

According to Global WebIndex, smartphone owners aren’t necessarily exclusive in choosing one specific messaging app. For example, 7 in 10 Snapchat users also use Facebook Messenger while 5 in 10 also use WhatsApp. People will be consuming content across chat platforms.

The leading publishers are starting to experiment with messaging content creation.
fm2According to a recent Tow Center research report, The Wall Street Journal is among the news organizations that have more than a million subscribers on LINE, Japan’s largest messaging app, experimenting with different content and daily alerts and breaking news. BuzzFeed, a more recent entrant to the platform, has taken a very different approach by building audiences through push notifications, stickers and comics.

BBC News was the first to experiment with editorial content on WhatsApp in 2014, most notably with its WhatsApp “lifeline” information service targeting communities in West Africa affected by Ebola. However, WhatsApp is not engineered to work efficiently as a mass push-notification service, and much of BBC News’ recent strategy on the platform has focused on audience engagement through user-generated content and newsgathering.

Some publishers are also linking journalists salaries to performance on messaging apps in an effort to grow digital audiences. For example, the Times of India is making its contributors file a minimum of 3 WhatsApp alerts every week

How to start experimenting
(Kik Partnered with Ad Council on anti-bullying campaign by creating a collection of stickers)
(Kik Partnered with Ad Council on anti-bullying campaign by creating a collection of stickers)

It is important to remember that these platforms are still in their infancy. They are, in most cases, longer-term play, rather than ones that will bear immediate fruit if referrals and audience reach expectations. Concierge media builds on people’s intrinsic desire of wanting to follow others, their own curiosity and the private nature of conversations and higher level of intimacy.

With that said, a team of editors can create specialized channels and seed it with content updates native to those platforms using automatic messages. These include text messaging, alerts, stickers, trivia and emojis.

This seed content will engage members to participate in the discussion and elevate the level of the conversation by sharing unique perspectives. This model of journalism and media creation mimics what happens in the real world, where a person surfaces a topic and the group engages in an active exchange. This is what gives value to the story; the journalist is responsible to initiate the debate and moderate it. He or she can add value to the discussion by fact-checking or providing more information when needed.

The key takeaways
Photo courtesy of The Associated Press
Photo courtesy of The Associated Press
  • Concierge media on messaging apps can be built by developing hyper-specialized verticals across topics such as sports, entertainment, lifestyle and general news.
  • Messaging apps provide a space for news outlets to engage their audiences with different — and possibly lighter — types of content.
  • These verticals are managed to follow the interest levels of news stories and dynamically adapt to the news cycle. If a certain topic ceases to be meaningful, the editor of a certain channel needs to make a decision whether to sunset the channel, maintain it or create a sub-channel.
  • Automation and bots will be a central piece of the content publishing strategy.
  • Monetization opportunities will come from sales of digital goods such as stickers, e-commerce or micro-events such as paid live programming.
  • Concierge media could reinvent the concept of newsroom to be inherently mobile and global. Reporters would not have to come to a physical space.
  • A big opportunity exists to build contributor networks of individuals with specialized knowledge of niche topics.

With time spent on messaging apps exploding, will the next generation consume most of its content on the small screen?

I’m the Strategy Manager for The Associated Press and fellow at Columbia Journalism School. I write about media, storytelling and innovation. Let’s connect. (@fpmarconi)

Perspectives

The rise of “homeless” media

We could soon see the emergence of a new wave of publishers that don’t require home pages or apps; their sole purpose is to syndicate content through different channels and social platforms.

Since the advent of the Internet, publishers have been trying to leverage distribution channels — such as social media networks — to drive traffic to their own websites. Now, though, content can be hosted and monetized on these third-party platforms through services including Facebook’s Instant Articles or Snapchat’s Discover. As such, we can see the emergence of a new wave of “homeless” media companies that don’t require a home page; their sole purpose is to syndicate content.

The evolution of digital media distribution

Digital media companies have, to this point, generated revenue primarily through advertising displayed on their own websites. The amount of money earned corresponds at least indirectly with the size of the audience visiting their pages, so publishers turn to external platforms to build their brands. The Huffington Post and Drudge Report utilized search engine optimization to grow, while BuzzFeed, Vice and Vox are prime examples of sites utilizing social media channels to create “viral” content.

In fact, BuzzFeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti said his company was “a global, cross-platform network for news and entertainment.” According to social analytics company NewsWhip, BuzzFeed earned more than 35 million combined Facebook likes, shares and comments in October alone.

From traffic acquisition to syndication

The goal of acquiring traffic via search and social is coming to an end for some, though. A few publishers are aiming to syndicate their content through various channels, not including a home page or website they own. They instead rely solely on the distribution and monetization from being on third-party platforms such as Facebook et al. A good example of someone using this model is NowThis, which has built a successful content business model despite having a website that currently reads, “Homepage. Even the word sounds old. Today the news lives where you live.”

Why could “homeless” media become a trend?

1. Mobile and app consumption is on the rise.

APMobileIn June, mobile accounted for two out of every three minutes spent consuming digital media in the U.S., according to comScore. In 2014, mobile apps surpassed desktop as the leading digital media usage platform.

Also in June, according to comScore, total time spent consuming digital media via mobile apps reached close to 779 billion minutes, versus nearly 551 billion minutes on desktops. eMarketer highlights that users in the US spent 170 billion minutes on Facebook’s mobile app. It’s becoming clear, if it hasn’t already, where audiences are spending their time — social networks.

2. Third parties are creating platforms for publishers to easily distribute and monetize content.

ZuckApphotoFacebook’s Instant Articles and Snapchat’s Discover allow partnering publishers to directly reach growing audience bases with native content. For example, The Washington Post recently announced it would send 100 percent of its stories to Facebook so all content could be immediately accessible to users of the social network, with no loading time or paywalls to sift through. CNN has a dedicated team of one designer and two edit staffers specifically focused on creating content for Snapchat.

Additionally, Google recently announced its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Program to help publishers create mobile-optimized content and have it load instantly everywhere. Twitter has an opportunity to work with partners on itsMoments feature, which presents a curated section of tweets related to the same topic.

Media companies can benefit by teaming up with these technology firms to create platform-specific content for the distribution channels with the largest audiences, potentially creating more engagement and revenue opportunities.

What does this mean for you?

If you are a journalist or executive at a traditional media company …

The rise of “homeless” media suggests a tipping point is at hand and that media companies will need to figure out how to approach it from both business and editorial perspectives. How much (and what) content should be sent to these channels? What’s the revenue potential in either case?

  • Even if you already have a big following, engagement remains the key. You will need to develop content verticals and unique programming that can attract new audiences.
  • Acquire or partner with smaller niche publications with distinctive voices that can augment your reach and inject innovation into your content.
  • Hire strategic partner managers to develop relationships with the platforms and get you on one of their publishing programs.

If you are an entrepreneur building the next big media brand …

  • Create distinctive content — build a niche audience that enables you to build a following.
  • Because you are not tied to any editorial guidelines, you have the opportunity to innovate on the format and build a following of people who are looking for new content.
  • Create a low-overhead business with minimal product development. Focus your resources on content creation and social distribution.
  • Hire people that have experience with platforms or that have worked at companies like Facebook, Twitter or Snapchat.

If you work at one of the big platforms …

  • Open up the native program to more publishers and provide support on best practices. Collaborate with publishers because the future of your business relies on great content.
  • Create a seamless experience for consumers to watch, read and experience content. You are the new “cable” so it will be important to create an uncluttered experience that centralizes the best content.
  • Share consumption data and help publishers (both new and legacy media) understand what content works so your users’ experience and content consumption can be refined over time.
  • Create opportunities for revenue sharing within the platform and build a safe environment for advertisers to invest their money.

If you are a venture capitalist looking for media businesses with growth potential …

  • Look for new media companies that have a distinctive voice and content that attracts a niche audience of engaged consumers.
  • Identify “content-first” companies with lean businesses and low overhead in product development, websites and mobile apps.
  • Help media startups in your portfolio develop strategic partnerships with larger media brands that are looking for niche content and new programming to grow their social following.

With native content consumption on third-party platforms growing, will it still be relevant for media companies to invest significant resources on running and maintaining their websites and mobile apps?

Francesco Marconi (@fpmarconi) is Strategy Manager for The Associated Press and fellow at Columbia Journalism School. He writes about media, storytelling and innovation.

 Note: This article originally appeared on Medium. Reprinted with permission. 

©2024 Digital Content Next. All Rights Reserved.