Who writes the texts you read in the newspaper? The editor? Maybe. But maybe not.
It may well be that a computer has taken over as editor, above all in reports on football matches, or on finance matters and the stock exchange.
Firms such as Retresco, Aexea, Texton or Textomatic, for example, supply editorial offices with soccer reports written by computers. This is an especially attractive proposition for reports on matches in the county division. After all, what local newspaper office can afford to send reporters to each game? And the articles are not at all badly written. Computers are surprisingly good at getting the often elaborate and specific language right.
An increasing number of reports will be generated automatically in the future. Take, for example, news reports about earthquakes written by "quakebots." Back in 2014, the first story about an earthquake in California was published on the LA Times website just four minutes after the quake had occurred thanks to one of these "robot journalists."
The increasing importance of news-writing robots is also highlighted by the investments being made by media companies in AX Semantics. The company recently received financing in the mid seven-figure range from three German media companies (NWZ Digital, PDV Inter-Media Venture, Müller Medien).
