NIEMAN REPORTS AUTOMATION IN THE NEWSROOM How algorithms are helping reporters expand coverage, engage audiences, and respond to breaking news nr_summer_2015_covers_spine.indd 1 8/21/15 11:48 AM Nieman Online Architecture Criticism: Dead or Alive? Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin addresses those who question his craft’s enduring infl uence and suggests how criticism can be revitalized in the digital age What APIs Can Do for News For NPR, The New York Times, and The Guardian, application programing interfaces have lowered the cost and risk of experimentation. David Weinberger, a fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy, explores the value of APIs for news organizations David Axelrod, right, director of University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, speaks with GOP strategist Steve Schmidt at Covering Campaigns, a conference for 2016 election reporters The Future of Public nieman.harvard.edu, awards & conferences Media Membership Knight Visiting Nieman Fellow Melody Kramer reports on the sustainability of public media beyond tote bags and pledge drives. She explores how membership can be broadened and strengthened, and the non-monetary ways people can contribute to their local stations Finding the Money? A detailed look at which independent local news sites are making money—and which “The question is, how ones aren’t as reporters do you From the Archives approach the campaign E.L. Doctorow, who died this summer, visited the Nieman Foundation in 1977. The master of the historical novel talked so that you’re looking about his new book “Ragtime,” his foray into journalism, and the diff erences— or lack of them—between journalists, at the race from the novelists, and historians standpoint of the 23 Ways To Be a Columnist In remarks to a gathering of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, American people?” Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune —DAVID AXELROD off ers 23 things she has learned in 23 years STRATEGIST FOR OBAMA’S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS of being a columnist nr_summer_2015_82015.indd A 8/21/15 11:45 AM Companies’ quarterly earnings reports represent a vast opportunity to automate journalism Contents Summer 2015 / Vol. 69 / No. 3 Features Departments storyboard cover Nieman News 3 The Play’s the Thing 8 Documentary theater’s dramatic appeal Automation in the Newsroom 32 Live@Lippmann 4 By Laura Collins-Hughes How algorithms can help reporters Medium content director Evan Hansen By Celeste LeCompte Finding a Voice 14 How a Robot Learns to Write 36 Niemans@Work 6 Egyptian media innovate under pressure An annotated auto-generated story Investigation helps free enslaved By Magdi Abdelhadi coverBy Jonathan Seitz fi shermen, virtual reality gets between Teach Your Computers Well 39 enemy combatants, free taxi service Your Attention, Please 20 Avoiding the risks of algorithmic bias in China to fi nd stories Slow journalism fi nds value in lingering By Celeste LeCompte By Michael Blanding Robot Reporting Tools Guide 40 nieman journalism lab Bots can monitor vast amounts of data Scale Is Everything 50 The Next Billion 28 By Jonathan Stray Can local news survive? Cheap smartphones may be a game By Joshua Benton changer in India By Hasit Shah watchdogwatchdog Books 52 How To Deter DoxxingD 46 “Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Newsroom stratstrategiese to protect reporters Secrets of the New Masters of Radio” BByy Rose EveletEvelethh By Jessica Abel Journalist and playwright Nieman Notes 54 Lawrence Wright Sounding 56 page 8 Jieqi Luo, NF ’15 cover illustration: OPPOSITE: ZANE MAXWELL/UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO INSTITUTE OF POLITICS; OPPOSITE: ZANE MAXWELL/UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO OF POLITICS; BOTTOM: PRESS; KEVIN YATAROLA TOP: SETH WENIG/ASSOCIATED Joe Magee nr_summer_2015_82015.indd 1 8/26/15 1:02 PM Contributors The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University (page 32), a 2015 www.niemanreports.org Celeste LeCompte Nieman Fellow, is a journalist, researcher, and product developer based in San Francisco. She is the former managing editor and director of product for Gigaom Research, one of the fi rst subscription products off ered by a major publisher blog network. Ann Marie Lipinski editor Joe Magee (cover, page 32) is a James Geary British artist, illustrator, and fi lmmaker. senior editor His images have appeared in The New Jan Gardner York Times, The Guardian, and Time magazine, among other outlets. His researcher/reporter Jonathan Seitz work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery as well as at the Victoria editorial assistants and Albert Museum. Eryn M. Carlson Tara W. Merrigan Jonathan Stray (page 40) is a design freelance journalist and computer Pentagram scientist. He has worked as an editor at the editorial offices Associated Press, a freelance reporter in One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, Hong Kong, and an algorithm designer for MA 02138-2098, 617-496-6308, Adobe Systems. He teaches computational [email protected] journalism at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. Copyright 2015 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Periodicals postage paid at Laura Collins-Hughes (page 8) is a journalist Boston, Massachusetts and in New York. She writes regularly about theater for additional entries The New York Times and books for The Boston Globe. She is a former fellow at the National Arts subscriptions/business Journalism Program at Columbia University. 617-496-6299, [email protected] Subscription $25 a year, Magdi Abdelhadi (page 14) is a writer and $40 for two years; broadcaster who divides his time between London add $10 per year for foreign airmail. and Cairo. Up until 2011 he was Middle East Single copies $7.50. editor for the BBC World Service in London. He is Back copies are available from a frequent commentator on the Middle East. the Nieman offi ce. Please address all subscription Michael Blanding (page 20) is a Boston-based correspondence to: author and investigative journalist whose work has One Francis Avenue, appeared in The New Republic, Slate, The Nation, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 and elsewhere. His most recent book, “The Map and change of address information to: Thief,” was published in June 2014. P.O. Box 4951, Manchester, NH 03108 ISSN Number 0028-9817 Hasit Shah (page 28), a 2014 Nieman-Berkman Postmaster: Send address changes to Fellow, is a former news producer and South Nieman Reports P.O. Box 4951, Asia specialist for BBC News in London. Manchester, NH 03108 He is developing a mobile news platform for new Internet users in India. Nieman Reports (USPS #430-650) is published in March, June, Rose Eveleth (page 46) is a writer, producer, September, and December by and designer based in Brooklyn. Eveleth has the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, written for Scientifi c American, BBC Future, and One Francis Avenue, others. Currently, she is the host and producer of Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 a podcast called “Meanwhile in the Future.” 2 nieman reports summer 2015 nr_summer_2015_82015.indd 2 8/26/15 1:02 PM Nieman News the nieman foundation Other participating for Journalism has partnered with organizations include the the Pulitzer Board to celebrate Newseum; The Poynter the 100th awarding of the Pulitzer Institute; The Dallas Morning Prizes taking place in 2016. News in collaboration with The yearlong centennial the George Bush Presidential celebration will include four Library and Museum, the signature events in Florida, George W. Bush Library and California, Texas, and at Museum, and the Lyndon Harvard, each focusing on a Baines Johnson Library and major aspect of Pulitzer history: Museum; and the Los Angeles Social Justice and Equality; War, Times with USC Annenberg Anna Griffi n Yang Xiao Migration, and the Quest for School for Communication Peace; Presidents and the Press; and Journalism. Other smaller- looked at how reporters are Polk Award for National and Abuse of Power. scale events will take place trying to work around Chinese Reporting in 1984 and he across the country throughout censorship 25 years after was a Pulitzer Prize fi nalist the nieman event, the the year. Tiananmen. “Where Are the the following year. He made capstone of the series, Women?” was the cover story several documentaries for will take place in September nieman reports has for the Summer 2014 issue of PBS’s “Frontline” on the 2016. Focusing on power, received two Mirror Awards, the magazine. It examined the October Surprise conspiracy accountability, and abuse, the which honor excellence dearth of female leadership theory during the 1980 program will include Pulitzer in media industry reporting. in newsrooms and what can be presidential election, and he winners in conversation, “Moral Hazard” by Yang done to increase their ranks has authored several books. storytelling, and performance. Xiao, NF ’14, won in the best at the top. “Robert Parry has for “This is not just a moment commentary category while Administered by decades been one of the for retrospection,” said Nieman “Where Are the Women? Syracuse University’s S.I. most tenacious investigative curator Ann Marie Lipinski, Why we need more female Newhouse School of Public journalists,” said Bill Kovach, a past co-chair of the Pulitzer newsroom leaders” by Anna Communications, the Mirror former Nieman Foundation Prize board. “Exploring Griffi n, NF ’12, won as the best Awards honor the reporters, curator and chair of the the ways the use and abuse of single article in digital media. editors, and teams of writers advisory committee overseeing power have echoed throughout “Moral Hazard” appeared who examine their own the award. “Driven by his the history of the prize can in the Winter 2014 issue industry for the public’s concern that the information ignite debate and strengthen of Nieman Reports as part of benefi t. fl ooding our communications both journalism and the arts as a cover package on “The State This year’s awards were system increasingly substitutes we look out to a new era.” of Journalism in China” that presented at a ceremony in opinion for historical New York City on June 11.