How This News Service Works
Everything explained in plain language.
What is this site?
We pull in headlines from 13 news sources (see the list below). Then we group stories that are about the same thing and show you who is covering what. The goal is to help you spot when one "side" is covering a story and the other is not.
What are clusters?
A cluster is a group of articles that are about the same story or topic, even if the headlines are different.
We use a computer model to read headlines and group similar ones together. So if the Guardian, the Telegraph, and the BBC all write about the same event, those articles end up in one cluster. That way you can see how many outlets are covering a story and compare their angles in one place.
Example: "Keir Starmer's leadership challenge" might appear in one cluster with articles from several papers, so you can see how each source frames the same story.
What is the Diversity score?
You might see something like: Diversity: 58% (3 sources, 3 articles).
- Sources means how many of our news outlets have at least one article in this cluster.
- 3 articles is the total number of articles in that cluster.
- The percentage (58%) is a combined score: it reflects how many different outlets are covering the story and how spread out the coverage is. Higher means more outlets are reporting on the same story.
So a high diversity score means "lots of different newspapers/sites are covering this." A low one means "only a few of our sources are covering it."
What are blind spots?
A blind spot is when one or more perspectives are missing from a story cluster. You might see: Blind Spot: Missing Right Coverage, Missing Left Coverage, or Missing Centre Coverage (and sometimes more than one, e.g. Missing Right & Centre Coverage).
That means: in this cluster, there are no articles from sources we label as right-leaning, left-leaning, or centre (as applicable). So you are only getting part of the spectrum. It is a heads-up that other perspectives might exist but are not in our feed for this story.
We do not tell you what to think. We just flag when coverage is one-sided so you can look elsewhere if you want balance.
What do Left and Right mean?
We use left and right as shorthand for where a news source usually sits on the political spectrum. It is a rough guide, not a perfect label.
Left-leaning sources (e.g. The Guardian) often emphasise collective action, redistribution, or progressive social views. Right-leaning sources (e.g. The Telegraph) often emphasise markets, tradition, or conservative social views. Centre sources (e.g. BBC) aim for balance and do not lean clearly one way.
We also label some sources as Pro-Indy or Unionist for Scottish politics. That is about independence vs union, not left/right.
Which sources do we use?
We use the following outlets and label each by editorial stance. This list is fixed in our system and may change if we add or remove a feed.
- Left: The Guardian, The Mirror
- Right: The Telegraph, Conservative Home, The Spectator
- Centre: BBC News, The Independent, DW News, Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, Euronews
- Pro-Indy (Scotland): The National
- Unionist (Scotland): The Herald
What is the coloured bar under each cluster?
The bar shows the mix of perspectives in that cluster. Each colour is one type of source:
- Red = left-leaning
- Blue = right-leaning
- Grey = centre
- Yellow = pro-independence (Scotland)
- Purple = unionist (Scotland)
The width of each colour is the share of articles from that type. So a bar that is mostly red means most articles in that cluster are from left-leaning sources.
What is "Framing Analysis"?
When we detect a blind spot (only one side covering a story), we use an AI to write a short summary of how that side is framing the story. For example: "The Right focused on cost, the Left focused on humanitarian impact."
That helps you understand the angle you are getting and what might be missing from the other side.
What is "Scottish Interest"?
Some clusters are mostly about Scotland or Scottish politics. We label those with Scottish Interest so you can find them easily. We use Scottish sources (e.g. The National, The Herald) to build those clusters.
Privacy and data
The Intelligence: AI analyses headlines server-side to cluster stories and identify blind spots.
Local processing: All RSS fetching happens server-side. When you click article links, you visit the news provider's website directly (they will see your IP address).
Privacy-respecting analytics only: No cookies, no ad tracking, no third-party services. We use Umami for aggregate page views only. This page runs entirely in your browser.
Blind spot summaries: Framing analysis is powered by Mistral AI (Europe). They are bound by strict EU GDPR laws. Headlines sent for analysis are retained only temporarily for processing and are never used to train their models.