Computers now writing their own financial stories

Proving what you’ve always known about quarterly earnings reports, Thomson Financial has started using a computer program that writes its own stories. Insert numbers and earnings data, out comes very boring and dry copy. But I love this line: “(Thomson is) using templates and “a rich thesaurus … so no two stories are exactly the same,” said Andrew Meagher, the company’s director of content development.” Just like when writers look for five different words for “fire” or “snow.” So instead of reporter bias, all we’ll have to worry about is computer BIOS. (Sorry.)