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Are transfer rumours written by algorithms yet?

Gutter Boy

Gutter Boy

Tim Sherwood
It was said in the old days that journalists used to have a list of players in one cup and a list of clubs in another to generate their transfer rumours, but I was just wondering how high-tech this process has become.

I was reading the other day how more and more media content is being produced by algorithms instead of people - feeding off big data and producing coherent stories - celebrity gossip columns and formulaic romance literature being the prime suspects. I was just wondering if any tabloid might have taken the step yet of replacing its junior writers with a computer that taps into twitter and FM, and churns out articles by itself.

Of course proper broadsheet analytical journalism will survive, but I wonder if, or how far away, tabloid ghost-writing by computers is. Does anyone have any particular insights?
 
I don't know about that.

But I can tell you that Jordinho is an algorithm, not a poster.

Fact.
 
Certainly feels like it is when you see Club A, B and C mentioned with one player. Clicks, hits, purchases all increased every time a fan of that club sees news about their team.

Which club draws the most attention, let's link that one. I am fairly confident it goes on at sites like Goal, Teamtalk, or in fact any minor site listed on Newsnow.
 
Be easy enough to do .. but doubt any of the Sports media are savvy enough ...

To me, still strikes me as old boys club, combination of pure speculation (1+1=3) and agents advertising their wares via media using a certain set of clubs as window (Spurs is one of those definitely used)
 
Well if it´s not done yet, someone´s gonna make a lot of money inventing something like this.

With all the dross currently published I´d actually expect an improvement in quality once algorithms take over.
 
I'm pretty sure there's a Spurs program, if a purported transfer doesn't complete within 48 hrs from breaking in the media, the move as 'hit the buffers' etc etc.
 
Gutter Boy said:
It was said in the old days that journalists used to have a list of players in one cup and a list of clubs in another to generate their transfer rumours, but I was just wondering how high-tech this process has become.

I was reading the other day how more and more media content is being produced by algorithms instead of people - feeding off big data and producing coherent stories - celebrity gossip columns and formulaic romance literature being the prime suspects. I was just wondering if any tabloid might have taken the step yet of replacing its junior writers with a computer that taps into twitter and FM, and churns out articles by itself.

Of course proper broadsheet analytical journalism will survive, but I wonder if, or how far away, tabloid ghost-writing by computers is. Does anyone have any particular insights?
Click to expand...

I would be interested in reading that, where did you find it?
 
Modric THFC said:
Probably the same thing Gutter Boy wrote but I found this interesting earlier this year.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_t...urnalist_writes_article_on_la_earthquake.html
Click to expand...

Thanks. An interesting read but I doubt that this is that widespread in football gossip. I think that it is more likely that content is just lifted from other papers and websites and reprinted with little (if any) fact checking.

I've recommended Flat Earth News on here several times before but it is a good read and really gives you an insight into how newspapers and journalists work now.
 
milo said:
Thanks. What makes you think that transfer gossip is a particular good fit for algorithms?
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Their banality - they are always very 'tab a goes in slot b'. It's also very much quantity over quality, so is the type of thing you can more readily 'outsource'.

I think match reports could be done as easily too actually. Most of the time I suspect the writer hasn't actually watched the match, they've just read the text service.
 
Transfer rumors are like horoscopes. They contain so much vague information that some of it is bound to happen! i.e "transfer will go through if x club can move on y player" and so on. No matter what happens, there will be some truth in that statement!
 
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