08 January 2014

The age of computers and the free (unfettered) press

By now you all are undoubtedly familiar with the habit of online newspapers to add to each article a few links that ostensibly lead to other articles on same subject. It is not a secret that in many media outfits this bit of work is computerized. Which means that a piece of software scans additional material, looking for some keywords picked up from the article in question and tries to match other articles to it. Here is a hilarious example of that job gone awry. Ynet of January 6, 2014 (click for comfortable viewing):


I bet the computer misunderstood the meaning of the word "schnozzle" in the lede of the article. Oh well...

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