Community Edition
Accuracy first
How The World Desk checks its stories
I’m Bill Kohn. I live in a life-plan community, and I publish The World Desk for readers like my neighbors. AI does much of our work. Here is how we keep it honest, and who answers for it.
Where our stories come from
- Each news beat works from a written list of named outlets worldwide, noting each one’s language and leaning. The lists are rechecked every week.
- Foreign news is read in the original language (Hebrew, Farsi, Arabic, Chinese, Ukrainian, Spanish and more). The original page is the source of record, not a translation.
- Wire services such as Reuters and AP are backup only, never a story’s only source.
- State-run outlets are labeled in the story (“Iran’s state-run IRNA reported…”), and their claims are reported as claims.
- Every story lists its sources, with links to the originals, so you can check them yourself.
The checks before anything is published
- Plain words. An editing pass rewrites jargon and insider headlines. Every story explains Why it matters to American readers.
- An independent fact-check. A separate AI service reads each story against its sources and current reporting (health stories are covered below), and rates it:
- Green: runs.
- Yellow (say, a detail only one source confirms): can run, and goes on my list to review that day.
- Red (a contradicted claim, an untraceable quote, advice instead of information): held. It runs only if it is fixed and passes a fresh check, or if I approve it myself. No answer from me means it stays out.
- A lock in the software. The system won’t publish a story unless its latest check passed on its exact wording, or I signed off. Change one word and it must be checked again.
- Health stories come to me the evening before. The ones I approve run without the AI check. Any I haven’t approved must pass it, and any I turn down never run.
What AI does / What a person does
AI assistants
Help research, translate and draft our stories, and run the fact-check and the automated checks, all under rules I set. AI also makes our illustrations, each labeled “AI illustration.”
A person (me)
I’m the editor. I set the rules: named sources, plain words, no invented facts. I decide every story flagged red, review each day’s flagged stories and decide which health stories run. My name is on every edition, and I am accountable for it.
AI can make mistakes. It can misread a source, overstate a headline or miss context. That is why these checks exist, and why a person answers for the result.
See something wrong? Email comments@theworlddesk.news.
William Kohn, Editor and Publisher · The World Desk News