Abstract

Journalists are routinely challenged with monitoring vast information environments in order to identify what is newsworthy and of interest to report to a wider audience. In a process referred to as computational news discovery, alerts and leads based on data-driven algorithmic analysis can orient journalists' attention to events, documents, or anomalous patterns in data that are more likely to be newsworthy. In this paper we prototype one such news discovery tool, Algorithm Tips, which we designed to help journalists find newsworthy leads about algorithmic decision-making systems used across all levels of U.S. government. The tool incorporates algorithmic, crowdsourced, and expert evaluations into an integrated interface designed to support users in making editorial decisions about which news leads to pursue. We then present an evaluation of our prototype based on an extended deployment with eight professional journalists. Our findings offer insights into journalistic practices that are enabled and transformed by such news discovery tools, and suggest opportunities for improving computational news discovery tool designs to better support those practices.

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call

Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.