Miami Herald is using software to write real estate stories

The Miami Herald is using computer software to produce stories about real estate, reports Alex DeLuca of Miami New Times.

DeLuca writes, “At 1:55 p.m. on October 15, Bot published its first article on the site: ‘North Miami Beach, Florida house sells for $2.4 million.’ Just two minutes later, it impressively published two stories at once: ‘Miami, Florida condominium sells for $5.4 million’ and ‘Sunny Isles Beach, Florida home sells for $2.6 million,’ both at 1:57 p.m.

“Before its first day on the job came to a close, Bot notched another byline, at 3 p.m., with ‘Coral Gables, Florida home sells for $5.1 million.’

“All told, over the past two and a half weeks, Miami Herald Bot has published more than 50 real estate stories for the daily newspaper of record. If it seems Bot is pumping these articles out like a machine, well, that’s because Bot is a machine — or rather ‘artificial intelligence software that analyzes structured information from prominent real estate data providers and applies it to templates created by journalists in the newsroom,’ according to the editor’s note that appears at the end of all of Bot’s stories.”

Read more here.

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.