Ex-WSJ R&D chief, automation editor start computational journalism company with $1.5M funding

Francesco Marconi, who led artificial intelligence efforts at the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press, announced Thursday in a Medium post the launch of new computational journalism company Applied XL.

Erin Riglin, who previously served as the Journal’s first automation editor, is the company’s chief technology officer.

According to TechCrunch, the news automation startup received $1.5 million in seed funding from Tuesday Capital, a venture capital firm that was an early investor in tech companies such as Airbnb and Uber, and aims to “combine precision of journalism with the scale of technology platforms,” said Marconi.

Applied XL develops editorial algorithms to source newsworthy information from raw data, generating industry specific alerts and insights for professional users.

The new company is staffed by computational journalists who develop custom algorithms rooted in editorial principles with editors deciding what weights and parameters to apply to the AI news system.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.