Automated sports journalism. The AnaFut case study, the bot developed by El Confidencial for writing football match reports

Periodismo deportivo automatizado. Estudio de caso de AnaFut, el bot desarrollado por El Confidencial para la escritura de crónicas de fútbol

doxa.comunicación | 29, pp. 235-254 | 235

July-December of 2019

ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978

How to cite this article:

Rojas Torrijos, J. L. and Toural Bran, C. (2019). Automated sports journalism. The AnaFut case study, the bot developed by El Confidencial for writing football match reports. Doxa Comunicación, 29, pp. 235-254.

https://doi.org/10.31921/doxacom.n29a12

José Luis Rojas Torrijos. PhD in Journalism from the University of Sevilla, he holds a position as professor in the Journalism II Department at the same university. Professor Rojas Torrijos is a member of the research group entitled Communication & Social Sciences (COM&SOC) as well as a lecturer in the following Master’s Degree courses: Innovation in Journalism at Miguel Hernández University, Sports Journalism at Pompeu Fabra University, Communication and Sports Journalism at the European University of Madrid, Sports Journalism at University CEU San Pablo-Marca and Sports Journalism at UCAM. He is also coordinator of the collective work entitled Periodismo deportivo de manual, and co-author of En Antena, the stylebook of Cadena SER.

University of Sevilla, spain

[email protected]

ORCID: 0000-0002-7390-9843

Carlos Toural Bran. PhD in Communication Sciences from the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC). Professor Toural Bran also teaches Multimedia, New Formats and Cyber Culture in the Department of Communication Sciences at the same university. He has been Vice Dean of the Faculty of Communication Sciences at USC as well as a journalist since 2006, and has participated in the research group known as Novos Medios, of which he is secretary of the group. He is also editor of the journal of the Spanish Association of Communication Research, and president of the Galician Association of Communication Researchers (AGACOM).

University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain

[email protected]

ORCID: 0000-0002-0961-3925

Abstract:

Sports coverage has become an expanding field for automated journalism due to the peculiarities of the competitions. Sporting events have an important statistical base that fosters the use of structured datasets and helps media outlets schedule information routines because of the cyclic and repetitive nature of matches and tournaments, and consequently, of news coverage. This article is a case study of AnaFut, the first bot developed by the digital native El Confidencial. This is the first Spanish media outlet to use this technology for the automated writing of football match reports.

Resumen:

El periodismo automatizado ha hallado en las coberturas deporti-vas un ámbito propicio para su expansión, debido a la propia natu-raleza de las competiciones. Estas tienen una importante sustancia estadística que favorece el manejo de datos ordenados y permite la programación de rutinas informativas, dado el carácter cíclico y re-petitivo de la celebración de partidos y torneos y, por extensión, del seguimiento que hacen los medios. Este artículo se detiene en el es-tudio de caso de AnaFut, el bot desarrollado por el nativo digital El Confidencial, primer medio español en usar esta tecnología para la

Received: 31/07/2019 - Accepted: 30/10/2019

Recibido: 31/07/2019 - Aceptado: 30/10/2019