Wordsmith empowers Tamedia, Switzerland’s largest editorial media group, to provide in-depth election coverage in German and French, for each of Switzerland’s 2,000 municipalities.
Tamedia | Media: Tamedia dates back to 1893, when the newspaper Tages-Anzeiger was founded. Today, the national media house counts 1,800 employees in the German- and French-speaking regions of Switzerland and incorporates the country’s leading editorial network. Tamedia’s daily and weekly newspapers, magazines and news platforms combine strong local roots with an international network. As well as raising public awareness, they provide information, guidance and entertainment. Tamedia’s well-known media brands include 24 heures, Basler Zeitung, Bilan, BZ Berner Zeitung, Das Magazin, Der Bund, Finanz und Wirtschaft, Le Matin Dimanche, Schweizer Familie, SonntagsZeitung, Tages-Anzeiger, Tribune de Genève as well as the Zurich regional newspapers (ZRZ). The portfolio also comprises the three largest newspaper printing facilities in Switzerland. Tamedia is part of the TX Group. For more information, please visit https://www.tamedia.ch/.
For over 120 years, readers in Switzerland have trusted Tamedia to provide them with their national and local news. As the largest editorial media outlet in the country, Tamedia took on the responsibility for balanced and objective news coverage to inform readers of the changes in local politics. Switzerland’s direct democracy means that each person’s vote directly affects the outcome of a political decision, and therefore Tamedia owed their readers all of the necessary information pre and post-voting.
With over 2,000 municipalities in the country, however, providing the necessary coverage for each election, vote, and poll outcome proved to be a near insurmountable task. How can the journalists, writers, and editors of Tamedia provide the coverage their readers trust and look to for each municipality without a major increase in headcount? The answer came in the form of natural language generation.
Prior to Wordsmith, extensive coverage of voting could only be provided to about 10% of municipalities, which only encompassed around 20% of the population.
Journalists worked countless hours to deliver the facts to readers, but could only focus on the major cities and surrounding areas. However, each municipality had items to vote on, and votes happened a number of times a year. Switzerland’s direct democracy government meant that voting was not only crucial, but frequent, so the Tamedia team had their hands full.
By automating election outcomes with Wordsmith, Tamedia’s readers could stay informed of the outcome of voting. The results of how their municipality voted and where their voting compared to the district, canton, and country could be delivered to each municipality – a feat otherwise impossible to complete by the Tamedia staff of writers.
“There was no way we could have made these reports covering all of the counties without automation.”
Not only was the coverage of results greatly increased, journalists were also able to focus their newly regained time on publishing more in-depth articles to better inform voters. In addition to this, Wordsmith also assisted Tamedia in creating data-driven content in German and French, the two most common languages amongst readers.
Since deploying Wordsmith to cover elections, Tamedia has branched out their NLG use to include an automated newsletter that provides the most interesting and popular articles, the country’s COVID-19 metrics, editorials, and more. This increase in content and user engagement has allowed Tamedia to build a mixed subscription model to generate new revenue. Tamedia plans on continuing to grow their Wordsmith usage to scale data-driven content and to allow for their journalists to create the content their readers know and love.
Tamedia not only expanded their group’s efforts, they also expanded their NLG capabilities. What was the secret to their success?
At the end of each automated report, Tamedia discloses what content is generated through automation. Readers are appreciative of the transparency, and commonly remark about how they are impressed with the automated reporting.
After each automated content page, Tamedia asks readers a quick, three question survey about the content: did it work, how would you rate the quality, and how would you rate the effectiveness? Tamedia uses this feedback plus others to adjust the automation.
Prior to deploying Wordsmith, election coverage was limited to only higher population areas. Language coverage was also restricted based on the abilities of the writers on hand. Now, Wordsmith generates coverage for all 2,000 counties in both German and French.
At the end of each automated report, Tamedia discloses what content is generated through automation. Readers are appreciative of the transparency, and commonly remark about how they are impressed with the automated reporting.
After each automated content page, Tamedia asks readers a quick, three question survey about the content: did it work, how would you rate the quality, and how would you rate the effectiveness? Tamedia uses this feedback plus others to adjust the automation.
Prior to deploying Wordsmith, election coverage was limited to only higher population areas. Language coverage was also restricted based on the abilities of the writers on hand. Now, Wordsmith generates coverage for all 2,000 counties in both German and French.
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