News Algorithms and Journalistic Authority

• In Event: Algorithms, Power, and Accountability in Journalism

Abstract

The use of algorithms to select, present, and author news stories deserves critical attention not only for how they modify news practices but also for how they alter the epistemic basis on which journalistic authority rests. As algorithms gain in popularity, journalists vacate practices that have long been central to their epistemic authority. The selection of newsworthy stories is a professional judgment, as is the ordering of these texts in particular meaningful ways. The more recent rise of automated journalism (aka, “robot news”) further strikes at existing cultural arguments for journalistic authority by supplanting the authorial function of human journalists. At core, these are issues concerning the relationship between control over knowledge and the boundaries of journalism as a legitimate form of cultural production. Developing a critical perspective to analyze these changes requires sensitivity to the material and discursive practices through which professions accrue social recognition, status, and power.

Author

• Matt Carlson, Saint Louis U