Algorithmic journalism

It’s all about the math these days, words that many journalists don’t want to hear. We’re word people, we like to say, not math people. So things like Google News make us uncomfortable, since it shows things based on algorithms, not human sensibilities (though, of course, the algorithms are written by humans). Clay Shirky offers this musing on ‘algorithmic authority,’ a fancy way of saying many people now trust what they find on Google or Wikipedia, a trend that will increase over time.  As these sources do so, they will become a counter-authority to things like the news media.

Shirky doesn’t weigh in on whether the rise of algorithmic authority reflects all the ‘human error’ reports we see now. He also doesn’t say whether he thinks surveys reflect a decline in journalistic trust because of the rise of the algorithm, or whether the algorithms themselves are causing a decline in journalistic trust.

Whatever the reason, a long-running Gallup Poll shows that since 2005, less than half of Americans trust the news media at least “a fair amount.” Post-Watergate, that number was in the 75 percent range. (Several other polls disagree, showing trust numbers in the 60 percent range or higher. [all polls on this polling report media page].) Perhaps using algorithms, as AOL plans to do, will boost our reputations. There’s no reason why math can’t be our friend.