Army West Point Athletics
Tuesday, May 4 - Outsource THIS!
May 04, 2010 | General
Outsource THIS!
Dallas Miller rejoining you at the keyboard today for an interesting look at how some new technologies might impact the SID field.
Let's start with the situation: The game has just gone final. While most people are figuring out how to exit the stadium, the work is just beginning for the SID - press conference to oversee, quotes to transcribe, game story to write, website to update, photos to post, media outlets to inform etc.
While looking around on the College Sports Information Directors (CoSIDA) website this morning for track & field Academic All-America nomination information, I stumbled across this little gem. A joint initiative from the Big Ten Network and Fox Cable, Narrative Science is a new computer program that, in layman's terms, translates box scores into press releases. It removes humans from the process of writing and editing to produce content like the following:
"Michigan held off Iowa for a 7-5 win on Saturday. The Hawkeyes (16-21) were unable to overcome a four-run sixth inning deficit. The Hawkeyes clawed back in the eighth inning, putting up one run."
Certainly not the best writing I've ever read, but technology has a way of improving rapidly. If this catches on, and it's already being used on the Big Ten's website for baseball and softball this spring, how does that change things for SIDs, who often consider writing their most-valued skill?
Remember the press conference that took tedious hours to transcribe? Programs like Dragon speech-to-text (and more recent offerings whose names elude me) can now have a hard-copy of a press conference ready in minutes.
I'm not sure how these services might change the landscape of athletic communications, if at all. At one point in time, the internet was a fad too. Just saying.
