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The idly desk

Every idly story carries the byline “idly desk”. This is who that is and how a story gets from the outlets that reported it to your screen.

What the desk does

  1. Reads the reportsWhen several outlets report the same event, idly groups their reports into one story. News needs three outlets; other sections two.
  2. Writes one summaryAn AI model writes a short summary from those reports: a one-line answer, three key facts and what's new, why it matters, what others say and what isn't known yet.
  3. Checks itThe summary is checked against the reports for facts that aren't in them and for copied wording, and rewritten when it fails. Sensitive stories wait for a person to approve them.
  4. Links the originalsEvery story lists the outlets it was built from, so you can read them yourself.
  5. Corrects in publicMistakes are fixed and logged on the corrections page; stories that shouldn't be up are taken down.

The editors

When an editor approves a story, their name appears on it as “checked by”, and here. Stories without a name passed every automatic check and were published without a person reading them first.

More

How idly works, editorial policy, corrections and report a mistake.