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birth of The Newsroom of Things

(at BBC)

For HACKS HACKERS LONDON Feb 2015 ##HHLDN

Matt Shearer @BBC_News_Labs

TONIGHT:

• Some context

• Case study

• What’s next

A little about BBC News Labs

What do we do?

Technology

Journalism

● Incubate ideas in this space

● #newsHACK events

● Partnerships

● New Formats Data

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME (for context)

sorry

You’ve seen this

ARRGHHHH VALUE

Near Term Long Term

THIS IS

WHAT

WE NEED

THIS IS THE

TENDENCY

EVEN IN

A LAB ALWAYS

FOCUS

HERE

we go bananas

over “moments in time”

and then they are gone

So, my focus

ARRGHHHH VALUE

Near Term Long Term

ONLY

LOOK

HERE !

It drives

best

ROI

It opens

future

opportunities

It helps create

productive

teams

THE CASE STUDY

BACK TO THE START

of linked data in BBC

NEWS

IT WAS SPRING 2012.

**EVERYONE**

was on 1 project

The OLYMPICS

From ~May 2012

“Do not release another

atom of code …

… in case you knock

over the Olympics.”

This was an

unprecedented

opportunity:

Let’s focus on something

Long Term & Important

“How might BBC News

use Linked Data

to connect and

contextualise

our News Stories?”

Answer: The Juicer

• before we change the Newsroom?

• and without the need for MAGIC DUST?

So – how do we explore this

1

Get

Content

2

Extract

Concepts

3

Match to

DBpedia

4

Annotate

Content

5

Push to

Triplestore

6

Expose

via

API

So, explain again,

what is

“THE JUICER”?

OK. In other words:

The Juicer automatically

tags News content with

Linked Data Tags

...& it allows us to test ideas,

using real data,

without an army

of tagging experts.

(NB it is not as good as real humans, yet)

The Timeline of

The Birth of THINGS*

in BBC News

* “Things” being: Linked Data, real world concepts (or “tags”)

that are understandable by machines.

Window on the NEWSROOM

Production App

Journalists

doing Manual Tagging

Storyline

2013 2014 2015

Summer

Labs Added “Non BBC” Sources

Start

App prototype PAIN

Sources ++

YES!

R&D

DISCUSS

A LOT

FUNDING

CRISIS

Joined

Connected

Studio

What’s the

editorial

story L.D.

concept?

v1

Conceptual

Struggle

Sceptical

Of Linked

Data

explore

APP

“Yes – it

will work!”

Innovation

Support

Production

Scaling

Vote

2014 Used

Linked

Data

This saved

us!

Thanks

to Robin

JT

Joins

JUICER POC in

the Newsroom

And so “The Things”

were born in BBC News.

And launched to our users

via BBC mobile Apps

OK

What did we find?

1. A Prototype is worth 1000 meetings

2. There will be pain

3. Loose coupling of teams/services is key

4. Keep referring to point 1

Next time? How do we plan it?

The formula is

• Enthusiastic people

• Cross discipline

• Trust & space from your sponsors

• Be pourous – flux of collaboration

What we use the Juicer for now

We use it to explore opportunities in the

important intersection

Technology

Journalism

Data

Metajournalism:

Stories in the Data in the Stories

EU Vote (2014) Media coverage

Over time…

Co-occurence…

More co-occurence

More co-occurence

NB – the tag associations here

are “co-occurrences”, and so

there is no indication of what the

co-occurrence means.

i.e. It could be negative, positive,

or non associative.

All we know is that the terms

have co-occurred in News

Articles in our source set.

What’s happening right now?

We are scaling-up the sources

What’s next for the Newsroom of Things?

1. Extend linked data through other workflows

2. Explore wider opportunities with Partners

Elsewhere in BBC NEWS LABS

Pilots to reach new audiences

“Adaptive News”

(pan-dimensional responsiveness)

Dis

pla

y S

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ce

Inte

ractio

n T

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Co

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Da

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/ P

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Lik

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islik

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Mo

od

(h

ea

rt r

ate

, E

EG

)

Tim

e o

f d

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Ro

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Tim

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va

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Me

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– V

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/ S

it B

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My S

ocia

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ed

ia P

att

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Immersive current affairs

Neurotech

#newsHACK events – rapid prototyping

Language Tech

Argument Mining

Partnerships

Thanks

@BBC_News_Labs

@completedespair

www.BBCNewsLabs.co.uk