Do robot stenographers dream of Ibrox glory?

Is sit on various bodies of the National Union of Journalists with special responsibility for what my union calls “New Media”.

What does that term mean to the NUJ?

Well, virtually everything that has exploded in the digital revolution in the last decade.

It also pertains to this independent digital platform, dear reader.

This website was initially set up by a comrade for me as an archive of previously published work in the Irish print sector.

When he was giving the original site an overhaul, he also made it blog enabled.

That was 2008.

If I recall correctly, he told me after he had done it and I remember at the time asking him what that actually meant!

Jaysus…

Now, I don’t know if I have won any friends on it, but it certainly has been a journey.

For the avoidance of doubt, popularity was never an objective.

During the past dozen years or so, the staffing establishment of major titles has been butchered.

There is no other adequate term.

Written a decade ago Ken Auletta’s “Googled” lays out what had already happened to newspaper circulations in North America.

It hasn’t improved in the last ten years.

Indeed, the print circulation figures for Scottish newspapers are so catastrophic that they are no longer published.

All of this comes back to technology and the application of it within a market economy.

The Wapping dispute with print unions was the end of the hot metal era.

It broke the craft guild power of the print unions.

At the same time, the word processing revolution suddenly, very suddenly, had hacks typing words onto the ubiquitous green screens.

The metallic machine gun clack-clack of scores of typewriters became an echo of the past in newsrooms.

My first dalliance with this new onscreen world was when I bought an Amstrad PCW 9512.

For me, it was the wonder of the age when I set this up.

Straight out of the box, I was writing on the screen.

It was 1990, and I was 34 years old, and it seems like an epoch ago.

I recall using the fiendishly intelligent machine to write a  letter to a Jambo buddy.

Yes, dear reader.

A LETTER!

The machine came with pre-installed wordprocessing software called Locoscript.

It was at the time that Wallace Mercer, the owner of Hearts, was trying to buy city rivals Hibernian.

When I typed “Wallace Mercer” onto the screen, the spell checker in Locioscript didn’t recognise it.

It offered an alternative:

“Wallaby Merger”.

I laughed like a drain.

On Planet Fitba word processors ushered in the fanzine era.

I recall walking up Janefield Street in the early 1990s and buying a copy of Not The View.

The reason for my purchase was simple.

I bought NTV to find out what was REALLY going on with the old Celtic board.

The very idea that I would get the truth from the official club organ was risible.

Moreover, I didn’t trust the mainstream media to publish anything that on Celtic that was not weighted towards the negative.

So, some things haven’t changed then.

Today I would get my Celtic boardroom scéal from some online Samizdat straight to the screen of my Samsung.

This is the world turned upside down.

Nine years ago, I chaired a seminar at the Irish conference of the NUJ.

The main speaker was Professor Roy Greenslade.

Full disclosure I know Roy, and we have a connection through An Phoblacht.

You can listen to his talk here.

Nine years on, I find his analysis both prescient and surprisingly current.

When Professor Greenslade gave his talk to journalism students at Croke Park in 2011, the c9onceot of Artificial Intelligence was not on the agenda.

It is now.

Given my New Media portfolio in the NUJ, I have been tracking this development for some time.

Today I was not surprised by this news.

Moreover, I fear that it will be a harbinger rather than a one-off.

Regular readers will be well aware of my opinion of the Stenography Corps on Planet Fitba.

One of the things that the constant staff cuts did to newspapers was to make them increasingly reliant on copy from PR companies.

This piece by Professor Greenslade from 2016 charts this development very well.

The strapline of his piece is highly apposite:

“If journalism jobs keep disappearing how will we hold power to account?”

Some cynics out there in Planet Fitba might observe that it would not take many lines of succulent code to come up with a suitably staunch algorithm to churn out klan klikbait.

This video from 2014 is worth a look.

Scroll to 8.46 at the subject of bots writing for newspapers is touched upon.

I do not think it is a   coincidence that the first category mentioned is sports stories.

This is a trend in journalism that is just beginning.

However, I do still believe that human input will remain vital to genuine investigative reporting.

Moreover, I do not welcome anything that further produces job cuts at newspapers or any other media organisation.

The same year as the “humans need not apply video” was created, Professor Greenslade quietly excoriated the chaps at the Daily Radar.

Since then, I felt authorised to use the term “Stenography Corps” to describe the copy and paste commandoes on the Glasgow sports desks.

I hope that this site has evolved into the equivalent of a Voight-Kampff test for genuine journalism on the matter of the Ibrox scandal over the last decade.

Thankfully, there are some jobs that AI cannot replace.

I cannot imagine any robot that could have this kind of emotional impact on such a dignified demographic.

 Slán abhaille mo chara agus go raibh míle maith agat!

10 thoughts on “Do robot stenographers dream of Ibrox glory?”

  1. Great piece Phill. Your most pertinent piece in the current environment. And this current SARS 2, media whipped frenzy is a fine example of how tick box controlled microsoft media has taken over already, where the real questions are not being allowed to be asked. I hope that the current cull in the media will sort the wheat from the chaff so to speak, but in a reverse way. I hope that all the good forward, free thinking journos are loosed from the shackles of working for an establishment or a title and form their own bands of courageous, intelligent, thought provoking and question raising establishment challenging, brother and sister hoods on line in the blogisphere. I for one would back and follow these people as long as they provided exactly what we are missing at the moment.

    I have previously tried at least half a dozen times, to get on with radio 5 live in the mornings to bring this exact subject up regarding AI, and the danger it poses to the working and even middle classes to no avail. They won’t even entertain it! And to my mind this is an even greater threat to the general public than SARS 2 ever will be! People you think this cull is bad. Wait until AI fully kicks in! The Companies and Organisations and Governments won’t stop then! Be prepared.

    Reply
  2. “Badhunner”

    ‘Rotgut Hoor (Keef Jackson) Monologue’

    “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Hibs fans, attacking Rangers* players, their families, friends, and even their kittens and puppies off the shoulder of Jimmy Bells Royal Blue Ford Orion. I watched Minty Moonbeams barbecue succulent lamb near the gates of Murray Park. All those moments will be lost in time, like EBT’s attacked by HMRC. Time for Rangers* to die.”

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  3. Change is a constant feature in all societies. Not always for the better. Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) and other writers have documented it over the centuries. Around forty years ago when our High Streets were still busy and with a mixed economy of local and national businesses I read of a phenomenon that was tearing the heart out of small town America called the “Donut Effect”. The writer warned that Britain was on the cusp pf experiencing the same in our High Streets. Small town America lost the heart and soul of their Main Streets when more and more retail parks and megastores were built on the outskirts of towns. They promised these developments would compliment Main Streets and give more choice to the consumer – all lies. Mom and Pop businesses went bust within a year of them opening and choice was reduced. Wages came down and unemployment went up with many young people heading off to the cities to find work and in some cases the megastores left too citing financial viability. Then it came to the UK and we lost out High Streets. As I started off, change is not always for the best. More could be said but, that’s for another day. Stay safe.

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  4. Real journalists will always be in demand.
    I read you Phil, but u don’t pick any of the, rags, i refuse now to fund the BBc

    Free news is more accurate than paid for news, for obvious reasons.

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  5. If the SMSM are replaced by AI, maybe we will finally see the survival and continuity lie put to bed.

    Just imagine Dougie Park replacing Will Smith’s role in I, Robot when the rogue boy decides it wants to be different from the other bots. Instead of Smith firing off a round of bullets, I imagine Dougie firing off a salvo of statements.

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  6. Thanks to the outing of Jackson and his Motherwell Billionaire with wealth off the radar nonsense those who previously thought that the Scottish football media could be trusted in what they said or wrote got a very strong message that an agenda was in place, had been for years, and the feckless writers and reporters worked hand in glove with PR people at Ibrox to keep bad news hidden and good news magnified to ridiculous levels.
    The Hagi case is the most recent and without kicking a ball the son of a famous father is being hailed as the next best thing.
    Failed at Fiorentina and confined to a bit player role at Genk. Yep, no doubt he has a couple of tricks up his sleeve but take away his Braga heroics and his SPFL contribution was fair to middling.
    He has no idea of what he’s walking into next season and he’s being hailed as the game changer in the 10 IAR historic chase.
    We have already heard some of his new team mates admitting that they couldn’t handle last seasons chase.
    The pressure on their players, Stevie G and the board from the fan base will be at a level never seen before.
    In their quest to talk up the challenge our media have unwittingly added to that pressure as they dig up previous Ibrox icons, heroes, superstars to support their printed/ spoken pish.
    We may have missed the opportunity to celebrate 9 IAR at Celtic Park with our fellow fans but next year’s celebrations as we lift 10 IAR will be off the scale, bring it on.

    Reply

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