But now let's turn to news of the future ... or perhaps the future of news.

MARK FERGUSON: One of the world's top experts says that robots are coming to every industrialised nation and no longer confined to the car industry. JACKIE QUIST: Humans beware. ROBOT: What's up Australia! JACKIE QUIST: Innovation is about to catapult us into a whole new era. — Channel Seven, News, 16th June, 2015

Yes, five million Australian jobs could go in the next 10-15 years according to this recent report. Or 40% of the country's workforce.

And don't think journalists won't be among them

AAP-that's Australian Associated Press-is developing software that will allow its computers to write simple racing and sports reports. And editor-in-chief Tony Gillies is pumped at the prospect.

Done well, the impact could be amazing, particularly for mobile publishers driven by speed of delivery as much as they are by accuracy. — Tony Gillies, Editor-in-Chief, Australian Associated Press, 19th June, 2015

But over in the US, robots are already busy scribbling.

The world's largest news organisation, Associated Press, gets its computers to write finance stories, using software called Wordsmith.

And the same software also writes sports reports for Yahoo, and real estate copy for Homesnap.

And we're not just talking one or two stories, according to Robbie Allen of Automated Insights who developed the software:

ROBBIE ALLEN: Last year we generated over 300 million stories with the Wordsmith platform. There's a very good chance that you read content that you had no idea was generated by our software. This year we're going to do over a billion stories so this kind of content is only going to become more pervasive every single year. — Huffington Post, 8th July, 2015

One billion stories would take an awful lot of journalists

And Allen tells Media Watch that Wordsmith may soon be writing the news for websites in Australia:

We're talking to a variety of news organisations. I can't share their names but the interest has been very strong from Australia. So, I would imagine that in the not too distant future we will have something there. — Robbie Allen, Automated Insights, 17th June, 2015

Nor is Wordsmith the only contender.

The business website Forbes uses Quill software from Narrative Science to write up company and earnings forecasts.

And American sports network BTN uses Quill to write match reports

What's more, in Los Angeles last year, an LA Times reporter actually scooped his rivals by using a Quakebot:

The First News Report on the L.A. Earthquake Was Written by a Robot Ken Schwencke ... was jolted awake at 6:25 a.m. on Monday by an earthquake. He rolled out of bed and went straight to his computer, where he found a brief story about the quake already written and waiting in the system. He glanced over the text and hit "publish." — Slate, 17th March, 2015

And it's not just in earthquakes that computers come first.

America's National Public Radio, or NPR staged a race between its White House reporter Scott Horsley and a Wordsmith bot to turn an earnings report from restaurant chain Denny's into news.

As you can see, the bot was much faster.

But ... we're glad to say when NPR asked readers which story they preferred, the reporter won hands down.

Story #1 - 1301 Story #2 - 12704 Story #1 is, of course, the one written by the machine. It clearly doesn't have the style of Scott's story. — NPR, 20th May, 2015

So, can reporters now relax? Well, NO.

At Sweden's Karlstad University, Christer Clerwall got his journalism students to read two reports of football games.

Four out of ten who read the robot text thought it was written by a journalist

And five out of ten who read the journalist's story reckoned it was written by a robot.

Sack that journalist.

But seriously it can be hard to tell. As you'll see from this New York Times test using two reports of baseball games:

"Things looked bleak for the Angels when they trailed by two runs in the ninth inning, but Los Angeles recovered thanks to a key single from Vladimir Guerrero to pull out a 7-6 victor..." — New York Times, 7th March, 2015

What dya reckon? Robot or human?

And what about the second one?

"The University of Michigan baseball team used a four-run fifth inning to salvage the final game in its three-game weekend series with Iowa, winning 7-5 on Saturday afternoon (April 24)" — New York Times, 7th March, 2015

So which one's written by the robot?

Tick, tick, tick.

Well, it's the first!

I got that wrong. And so did almost everyone at Media Watch-and that's a couple of hundred people as you know.

So let's take another New York Times test and try it with poetry.

"When I in dreams behold thy fairest shade Whose shade in dreams doth wake the sleeping morn The daytime shadow of my love betray'd Lends hideous night to dreaming's faded form." — New York Times, 7th March, 2015

Surely that has to be Shakespeare?

And this piece of prose also sounds familiar.

"Kitty couldn't fall asleep for a long time. Her nerves were strained as two tight strings, and even a glass of hot wine, that Vronsky made her drink, did not help her. Lying in bed she kept going over and over that monstrous scene at the meadow." — New York Times, 7th March, 2015

So. Robot or human?

Well, if you guessed Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy ... then you'd be ... Wrong ...

And it wasn't a Shakespeare sonnet either.

Both were written by computers who've been taught to emulate the style.

And it's not just poetry or prose they can copy.

Developers claim the software can be programmed to produce general news, movie reviews and, heaven forbid, even opinion:

Just think of it, an Andrew Bolt bot.

The software can be as opinionated as the programmers want to make it. For Yahoo, we started doing fantasy football recaps and we're making those very snarky and humorous. — Robbie Allen, Automated Insights, 17th June, 2015

Yes, bots are accurate, fast and funny. And, of course, they don't get tired and don't complain. So, should journalists and readers be worried that they'll take over? Some say yes.

Robots have mastered news writing. Goodbye journalism — Wired UK, 6th March, 2015

But AAP's Tony Gillies insists that computers writing the news will be good for readers and need not be bad for journalists

It shouldn't necessarily be about replacing staff with "robots" ... Technology used in this way can help publishers deliver content they would not otherwise be able to deliver. — Tony Gillies, Editor-in-Chief, Australian Associated Press, 19th June, 2015

Software developer Robbie Allen also claims it's a win-win because it will free reporters to concentrate on more important stories

Like chasing the Kardashians perhaps.

But we're more inclined to listen to Silicon Valley entrepreneur Martin Ford, author of Rise of the Robots, who says:

"I don't think we're going to see huge numbers of journalists lose their jobs because of this, but I think that what we're more likely to see is fewer journalists may be hired in the future" — World News Publishing Focus, 10th March, 2015

So what are the jobs that robots cannot do?

Complex investigations, analysis of issues and reporting live from the scene as a story is breaking, are all areas where humans still rule.

So, I'm happy to say there are some jobs than could never be replaced.

Like mine for example ...

And you can read more about tonight's stories on our website, where you can get a transcript and download the program.

You can also catch up with us on iview and contact me or Media Watch on Twitter.

But for now until next week that's all from us. Goodbye.