Robot Journalist: Challenge vs Opportunity

Ever thought that the news article you just read coming from a machine?

Switched from paper to digital platform, now even the journalists are “replaced” by the machine. But can this technology fully replace the human journalist?

I came across to one tweet from @Beritagar on Twitter that said one of the news (in the tweets) is made by a robot! I think, they are the first online news platform in Indonesia that have fully utilise the robot-journalism. The robot-journalist was reporting the IHSG graphs (which I don't fully understand due to my lack of interest in graphs and numbers lol), but I think it is very useful and efficient, since it is only a "report", coming from numbers that can be fully analysed by a program. No need for opinion and emotion attached. 
Many media outlets abroad have utilised the robot-journalism for many other purposes, but mainly on the statistics coverage. For example, in the World Cup reports last month, they can use the data (based on how many times the Team has won, etc) to predict how the teams will perform on the field. Also, the game results' report come very fast since the data is only about the score (number) and how the teams played that night (number of cards given by the referee, duration of the game, who scores the goals, etc) which already been inputted throughout the game.

Pros:

1.     Statistically, the data used in the news are more accurate (helping data-driven journalism)

2.     Time-efficient (real-time updates)

3.     Algorithm choosing the news, gaining more audiences, good for the company to spot trends

Cons:

1.     Replacing human journalist?

2.    Robot or machine can’t conduct face-to-face interviews, following up with appropriate question after an interview, will be hard to verify statements without any previous available data

3.    Emotion in writing can’t be replaced

    IMHO, as technology become more advanced, instead of seeing it as a threat, we could change our perspective and see it as an opportunity. With the advanced statistical programming, we may make better reports in shorter period and be more focused on other reports such as investigative articles that need the real human journalist (conducting interviews, etc).