TheWorldJournal.com - Technology

e-Journalist
By Matthew Knott, TheWorldJournal.com

Journalists at TheWorldJournal.com and other online news websites could find themselves competing against a computerized journalist created by researchers at Columbia University in the United States. The software originally intended for making intelligence gathering easier on the web can also be used to search thousands of stories on news sites and produce a summarized article.

For the recent death of Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother of the British Royal Family the system produced this extract:

"The Queen Mother's coffin, draped in her personal flag and crowned by a wreath of pink camellias, had been driven the 25 miles from Windsor Castle in a hearse flanked by police motorcycle outriders. Princes Charles paid a moving public tribute to his late grandmother Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on Monday, praising her "panache, style and unswerving dignity" as mourners across Britain left teddy bears, candles and wreaths in public places in her honour."

However the system is not perfect, as claimed by its creators. It cannot summarize the different sides of a story and human journalists still provide the source for the system's research. In a survey of readers of articles produced by the virtual journalist however 88% found it better than going to multiple websites for the news.

Visit the ‘Newsblaster’ site for stories produced by the system at
http://www.cs.columbia.edu/nlp/newsblaster/

© April 10, 2002

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