{"id":3930,"date":"2017-09-18T15:39:02","date_gmt":"2017-09-18T14:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amdf-centre.org\/?p=3930"},"modified":"2026-07-05T20:08:59","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T19:08:59","slug":"chat-bots-help-newsrooms-talk-to-readers-one-on-one-and-discover-stories-in-their-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amdf-centre.org\/2017\/09\/18\/chat-bots-help-newsrooms-talk-to-readers-one-on-one-and-discover-stories-in-their-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Chat bots help newsrooms talk to readers one-on-one \u2014 and discover stories in their community"},"content":{"rendered":"
Ricardo Bilton, Nieman Lab | September 13, 2017<\/div>\n
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Bots on Facebook Messenger have been, at best, a mixed bag so far.\u00a0When Facebook opened up Messenger to brands last April<\/a>, the immediate \u2014 and unsurprising \u2014 reaction among publishers was to see the chat app as yet another distribution channel.\u00a0The early \u201cbot\u201d experiments from CNN, Mic\u00a0and others<\/a>\u00a0were built around this conception, offering subscribers daily digests of top stories or other simple forms of push-based alerts.<\/p>\n

Those rushed early ideas resulted in user experiences that did little to take advantage of the unique strengths of Messenger\u2019s text-based interface. But more recent experiments show that news organizations are starting to realize the potential of Messenger and are using it to experiment with new kinds of talking to their readers.<\/p>\n

Last month, Honolulu Civil Beat launched a chat bot designed around a few questions: How can a news organization use Messenger to start a genuine conversation with readers at scale? Can messaging be a viable way to field news tips from readers? And is there a better way to use Messenger to get stories out to people and make people more aware of the work that Civil Beat does?<\/p>\n

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The resulting product, while limited so far, offers a glimpse of Messenger\u2019s evolving potential for news organizations, particularly small ones. When Facebook users message Civil Beat, the bot initially responds with a handful of automated messages that explain the idea behind the bot, links to a preview of the Civil Beat Monthly donor email (and donation link), and, lastly, asks if the user wants to sign up for the Civil Beat daily newsletter. Once users get through those initial prompts, someone from Civil Beat itself is able take over and field the user\u2019s question or comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just another tool for us,\u201d explained\u00a0Anthony Quintano<\/a>, Civil Beat\u2019s engagement editor. \u201cBut it\u2019s a very interesting one because it provides direct contact with people.\u201d While readers are obviously already able to communicate with Civil Beat and its reporters via Facebook comments, email\u00a0and by phone, the site wanted to\u00a0\u201cget to the closest point where people could directly message us,\u201d Quintano said. \u201cWe want to be everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Civil Beat, a newsroom of 20 with no in-house developers, worked with an external developer on the bot. Quintano said the size of the organization has forced it to be more creative with how it experiments with new ways of connecting with readers. The novelty and potential of the Messenger interface, coupled with the size of its readership on Facebook (216,400 users follow Civil Beat\u2019s page) helped win over the organization. ProPublica,\u00a0which has used Messenger to collect story ideas from readers<\/a>, also cited those features for why it decided to create a bot.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Facebook Messenger can be something of a sterile, impersonal way to engage with readers, as chat platform Purple recently discovered. Last year the company moved its entire operation to Messenger, whose backend and ties to the Facebook ecosystem it thought would make for a compelling value proposition for readers. A year later,\u00a0lack of user interest has forced the service to leave Facebook Messenger entirely<\/a>. (Rebecca Harris, Purple\u2019s CEO and cofounder, suggested that some of the early, uninspired Facebook Messenger bots had poisoned the well for the projects that followed.)<\/p>\n

Early reader reaction to Civil Beat experiment has been mixed. Some said they found it annoying; some asked the bot itself whether such an idea was necessary. But Civil Beat also saw an encouraging number of people who thought it was an interesting project and embraced the idea of using it to communicate with the Civil Beat team. Some of these readers even used the bot to ask for help with Civil Beat videos they couldn\u2019t find, while one reader asked the bot what kind of camera Civil Beat used to stream\u00a0footage of a Monk Seal and its pup in July<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s been very impressive for the little we\u2019ve done with it so far,\u201d Quintano said.<\/p>\n

But the most welcome development so far has been the number of readers who have used the Messenger bot to send Civil Beat news tips. While the site has always let people send it suggestions for things it should cover, Quantano said it was \u201cpretty rare that we would actually get tips.\u201d But within a few days of the bot\u2019s launch, multiple readers were sending story ideas, questions, and, in some cases, photos of things they thought Civil Beat should cover.<\/p>\n

For now, resource constraints prevent Civil Beat from further developing the bot, but Quintano the site is intrigued by what it\u2019s seen so far, and is looking forward to expanding the idea over time. \u201cWe don\u2019t know where this could take us. The goal is to find what potential there is as far as reaching our readers and possibly getting some stories out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article<\/a> first appeared on Nieman Lab<\/a> and is republished with permission.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Main image CC-licensed by Flickr via Hamza Butt<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n