{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","title":"If...Then Algorithmic Power and Politics","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"2017054909","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","id":"1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","uuid":"1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","title":"If...Then Algorithmic Power and Politics","normalized_title":"ifthenalgorithmicpowerandpolitics","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"2017054909","isbns":["2017054909","9780190493042","9780190493059"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":211,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/If...Then%20Algorithmic%20Power%20and%20Politics","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053/search"},"page":{"printed_page":137,"pdf_page":147,"physical_index":147,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"d31944920ad75dbed3b9b50035383ffb440a1a632ec7f9b0969c057e67d3eb1f"},"chapter":"IF...THEN","content":"Although the algorithm is programmed to curate the front page, the editors need to check on the algorithm’s performance continuously. As “Emma” (another editor) explained, they need to keep track of how the stories actually appear on the front page and the extent to which the front page reflects the front pages of other major newspapers (Interview 13, March 2015). In other words, editors cannot simply assign their news and lifetime values and trust that the algorithm will do its part of the job correctly. It needs to be checked constantly. It is not just that editors need to check the actual front page to see how their stories are displayed. They also need to make sure that the collective product—Omni’s front page—comes together nicely. In order for the front page to be displayed in the desired way, editors sometimes have to change the initial values given to a news item after it has already been published. This practice, more commonly referred to as “sedating the algorithm,” is by no means uncontroversial among the news professionals at Omni. Having to “correct” the algorithm by manually refurbishing the front page seems to go against the purpose of employing an algorithm in the first place. As Gustafsson and several of the editors told me, the whole idea of assigning values is premised on the notion that the values represent more or less objective and stable journalistic criteria of newsworthiness. For example, changing a story that would, in reality, only merit a news value of 3 into a 5, which normally indicates breaking news of major importance, may not just feel counterproductive. It can also complicate the workflow itself. There is a certain sense in which the initial values cannot be taken as a given, and that you as an editor have to be prepared to change and adjust your own valuation practice to accommodate the practices of your colleagues and whatever story they are working on, in order to achieve the final product that is the front page.\n\nWhile everyone at Omni seems to agree that “sedating the algorithm” may not be ideal, there is also the sense in which these unintended consequences become an opportunity to engage in an ongoing conversation about what news should be and how the editorial news flow should ideally be organized. At Omni the meaning ascribed to algorithms had less to do with the algorithm in the technical sense and more to do with the algorithm as an infrastructural element. Despite describing the algorithm as “labor-saving device,” for “Frank,” the algorithm seems to be merely one among many other elements that allow him to work in the way that he does— “without anyone telling you what to do” and with a great deal of responsibility and freedom (Interview 12, March 2015). The unintended consequences of algorithms notwithstanding, the same consequences may on a diferent occasion be turned into a welcome argument in favor of using algorithms. The need to check up on the algorithm’s performance as evident from the editorial workflow at Omni becomes at the same time an argument in support of human labor and know-how.\n\nProgramming the News\n\n137","previous_page":136,"next_page":138}