Limitations of the Holovaty model

As I noted Holovaty maintains that what journalists do is collect, organize and deliver information, and that much of that process can be automated.

Holovaty has applied that principle to a number of notable projects. However, he ackowledges that there is still a place for storytelling:

An article -- a "big blob of text" -- is often the best way to explain concepts. The nuances of the English language do not map neatly to machine-manipulatable data sources. (This very entry, which you're reading right now, is a prime example of something that could not be replaced with a database.) When I say "newspapers need to stop the story-centric worldview," I don't mean "newspapers need to abolish stories." The two forms of information dissemination can coexist and complement each other.

Holovaty's concepets are most powerfully applied to the informational aspects of journalism, but reading Lule makes it clear that the most common straight news story may have a cultural meaning that transcends the facts of a single story. Holovaty uses a common staple of local news -- the fire story -- to make his point about structured data. The typical fire story might read:

"Two children were killed and a firefighter was seriously injured when fire tore through a row home on the South Side early this morning. The children's mother and two other children escaped the blaze, but flames and smoke prevented firefighters from reaching 7-year-old Tom Smith and his 5-year-old sister Tina, who were sleeping in a rear bedroom. They were pronounced dead at the scene.

"Fire Commissioner Lex Luthor said the cause of the blaze is still being investigated, but a hallway space heater may be to blame. He said the smoke detectors in the house appear to have been in working order. The two-alarm probably started around 3:30 AM, and was declared under control by 4:30.

"Firefigher Tess Truehart was overcome by smoke inhalation when she tried to rescue Tom and Tina. She was taken to Lakeland Hospital where she is listed in serious condition. The children's mother, Tonya Smith, 30, was able to carry 3-year old Terrance and 1-year-old Tyrone out of the burnning house, but firefighters prevented her from returning for the other two children. The three survivors were also taken to Parkland, where they are in good condition.

Smith's husband, Thomas Smith, Sr., 31, rushed home from his job at a nearby bakery when he saw smoke coming from the direction of his house...."

About this type of story, Holovaty says,

"I really want to be able to do is explore the raw facts of that story, one by one, with layers of attribution, and an infrastructure for comparing the details of the fire -- date, time, place, victims, fire station number, distance from fire department, names and years experience of firemen on the scene, time it took for firemen to arrive -- with the details of previous fires. And subsequent fires, whenever they happen."

But both Lule and Mitch Stephens would likely note that such a rendering, while valuable, strips the story of its cultural worth. Beyond the bare facts of this case, there is tragedy, heroism and caprice. A database that scooped up the details of this fire from fire and police reports and organized it in the way Holovaty suggests would perform great service to people looking trying to assess the effectiveness of fire-prevention efforts, for example.

But people who know the Smith and families, or who live nearby, will probably want more. And depending on other things that might be going on in the community (for example, the frequency of fires, or the status of female firefighters), the story might assume complexities that lend themselves to narrative.

As I proceed to work on tools for automating aspects of narrative journalism, I don't want to lose sight of these limitations.