Automated Journalism in UK Local Newsrooms: Attitudes, Integration, Impact

Abstract

ABSTRACT Automated journalism is increasingly used in news production in UK local newsrooms. Although scholars have been discussing the disruptive potential of automation for journalism, little is known about how local media practitioners deploy and perceive automated journalism. This study aims to help fill this research gap using semi-structured interviews with media practitioners from four local news companies that use automated journalism provided by the news automation service RADAR and with employees from RADAR itself. Our findings show that local journalists evaluate this type of automated journalism based on several occupational influences, that they integrate it into news reporting in various ways, and that their use of automated journalism has an impact on journalistic output and newsroom performance. Our evidence also shows that whilst most media practitioners perceive the relevance of automated journalism for local news reporting as limited and, instead, emphasise the importance of human agency in the journalism workflow, what they report is conversely a shift in their practices which actually suggests that automated journalism has greater impact than they are currently willing to acknowledge.