How we rank and label
What a machine decides here, how, and how to tell us it is wrong
What we show
We find articles about the countries we cover in the public news feeds of about fifty outlets, every six hours. For each article we show the headline, the outlet, its own picture and a link. We do not copy the article.
Stars
A language model reads each headline (and the page description the outlet publishes) and gives the article a score from 0 to 10: how much it is worth reading if you want to know how the world sees a country. Editors can correct a score.
Every article gets a score from 0 to 10 stars when it arrives, for how much it is worth reading if you want to know how the world sees a country.
- ★ 9–10 Shapes or reveals how the outside world sees the country.
- ★ 7–8 Substantive and specific: reportage, analysis, genuinely new facts.
- ★ 5–6 Relevant but ordinary: updates, columns, explainers.
- Below 5 Passing mentions and background noise.
Translations
Headlines in other languages are translated into English by the same model, as literally as possible. The outlet's own headline is always one tap away (“Show the original headline”). We do not translate articles.
Stories
Articles about the same event are grouped into one story by the model, from their headlines. The story page lists every outlet, free and subscribed ones first.
Outlet stance
For each article the model also judges how it talks about the country: very critical, somewhat critical, neutral, somewhat supportive or very supportive. An outlet's label is the average of its articles on that country over the last 12 months.
- An outlet needs at least 10 articles to get a label; before that we say “Not enough coverage yet”.
- Small samples are pulled toward neutral (every outlet counts as if it had 5 extra neutral articles).
- “Mixed” means at least 30% of its articles are critical and at least 30% are supportive.
- It describes the outlet's coverage of the country, not one article, and not whether the coverage is right.
Reader ratings
Readers rate a story: is it fair, does it teach something. A score is shown only from 5 votes, and the propaganda flag only speaks when at least 5 readers and one in five of the readers who rated the story agree. Readers' answers are opinions; they are not checked.
Mistakes
The model makes mistakes. On every story, “Report a wrong label or translation” sends the stars, a stance label, a translation or the article type to our editors, who fix it. Outlets and rights holders can write through the removal request page.