1. A method for automatically generating a natural-language news item, the method comprising the steps of: (a) gathering at least one data record; (b) filtering said at least one data record according to at least one rule to produce at least one filtered data set; (c) aggregating said at least one filtered data set; (d) analyzing said at least one filtered data set for at least one statistical trend; and (e) automatically generating a news item based on said at least one statistical trend.