Robots writing the news?

Three news sources:
1) BBC News- March 18th, 2014 7:15pm
2) CNN- March 19th, 2014 11:45am
3) FOX-March 19th, 2014 7:30pm

I decided to focus on the news story covering the news-writing robot. Apparently, after the L.A. earthquake, the L.A. Times managed to publish an article in three minutes after the earthquake occurred with the help of a robot. This led to The L.A. Times clearly being the first news network to break the news.

BBC News broadcasted this story quickly and informatively. The broadcaster had an optimistic attitude overall and seemed as if he was excited to tell the story. While introducing the story, BBC played the viral video of the news broadcasters who were on air while the earthquake occurred. The coverage on this story was rather short, there was no feedback from the anchor or opinions just straight up facts. He explained how the robot worked and that it was able to publish a news article in three minutes flat. After a few short minutes, the news anchor moved on to the next story so it was obvious that this wasn't a particularly significant story. I also found that this news anchor had a very simple, informal language style while presenting his story.

Unlike BBC, CNN covered the story much more extensively. Although the coverage was still pretty short compared to other breaking news, CNN was much more in-depth than the previous broadcast. After covering basic facts on the news writing robot, the two anchors discussed their personal opinions on the robot. They had differing views from one another which made the story more interesting. One anchor believed that the robot is a good addition to news companies for faster, more accurate breaking news while the other anchor believed that it would cost journalists their jobs. This coverage story included images of robots along with the viral video I mentioned earlier. The biggest difference between CNN and BBC is that this story seemed to be more important to the news anchors on CNN. They had more expression in their faces that allowed viewers to get a better feel for their general attitudes towards it and made it an overall more interesting story to watch by including their opinions and a discussion. I also found that the overall language used was much more formal with the inclusion of larger, more complex terminology than the BBC broadcast.

FOX news also covered this story very briefly. I guess this isn't a crazy, breaking news story with the missing airplane, Ukraine and Russia, and Turkey and Syria stories flooding the news. However, the news anchor seemed completely appalled with the idea of a robot writing the news. Unlike the other news anchors covering this story on CNN and BBC, this anchor was very expressive and provided an in-depth explanation of why this robot is a bad idea. There was no video and there were no photographs included in this story it was one news anchor expressing his opinions towards it, which I thought was interesting. Overall, this coverage had a more serious tone than the other broadcasts due to its lack of graphics and negative views towards the topic.