‘Algorithm design is an important new way for thinking about media diversity in society.’
News algorithms can be powerful expressions of journalistic values says journalism AI specialist Nick Diakopoulos, in COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW. He suggests curation algorithms align with individual news organizations, They can be tuned to reflect in-house beliefs in transparency, accuracy, or other factors.
No single set of values should be expressed by all newsrooms, he argues. Instead, algorithms can, and should become, a new way of achieving diversity of voices. Tailoring algorithms by organization will distance news companies from the tech platforms.
Diakopoulos is a professor at Northwestern University, a fellow at the Tow Centre, a frequent speaker and commentator on journalism with AI, and author of the leading book in the field, Automating the News.