Boring for Journalists

The Boring Standard

What every story on Boring meets

1. Every fact has a source. Each fact links to the reporting or record it comes from. A claim we can’t match to its source is left out, not softened.
2. All sides, no verdicts. Stories are written from a balanced mix of the outlets that covered them. The main edition’s stories need coverage from both the left and the right, or from the center, and a story only one side covered is labelled that way. We describe how each side covered a story; we never say who is right. Political leanings come from independent ratings, never from us, and while those ratings are provisional we say so.
3. Plain words. No loaded language, no speculation, no exclamation marks, no clickbait headlines.
4. Breadth, not engagement. Stories are ranked by how widely they were covered, never by clicks or time spent, and the edition ends.
5. The record, quoted. Background on a story comes from official records and earlier reporting, each fact checked against a quote from the page it cites. Stories from the public record are written only from the record and cite it.
6. Show how it was made. Every story says how it was made and that AI wrote and checked it. Published editions are kept exactly as they were and never rewritten.
7. Corrections in the open. A mistake gets a dated note, the corrected text and its sources, on the story and on the Corrections page, and the next email and show announce it.
8. Coverage, never intent. When few outlets covered something, we say who covered it, never why others didn’t.
9. Readers’ privacy. No ads, no tracking cookies, and nothing readers send us is ever published: votes and poll answers appear only as totals.
10. Disclosures. Claude, the AI that writes Boring, is made by Anthropic; any story that mentions Anthropic says so.

For original reporting on Boring

When journalists publish here, they meet all of the above, and:

11. Evidence on the record. Every claim links to archived evidence. Theories never publish; only what the evidence shows does.
12. Right of reply. A person or organization facing an allegation gets a fair chance to respond before it runs, and the story includes their response or says they didn’t give one.
13. Private people stay private. Private individuals aren’t exposed, and personal details appear only when they’re essential to a story in the public interest.
14. A legal read for serious allegations, before they run.
15. Bylines and accountability. The journalist is named and responsible for the story, discloses conflicts of interest, and takes no payment from anyone the story is about.