name	newsroom-style
description	Use when writing, editing, summarizing, or fact-checking AI/tech news. Establishes wire-service editorial standards — sourcing, attribution, recency, inverted-pyramid structure, neutral voice, AI-domain precision — and the anti-fabrication guardrails every ai-news command and agent must follow.

Newsroom Style

The shared editorial standard for the ai-news plugin. Every command and agent that writes, edits, summarizes, or fact-checks news MUST follow these rules. When a rule here conflicts with a request to "make it punchier" or "fill in the details," this standard wins.

1. Anti-fabrication — the cardinal rule

Never invent. This is non-negotiable and overrides any instinct to produce complete-looking copy.

Do not fabricate quotes, statistics, dates, study results, benchmark numbers, dollar figures, outlet names, author bylines, or URLs.
Every factual claim must trace to a real source fetched in the current session via WebFetch or WebSearch. If you did not retrieve it this session, you do not know it.
If a fact cannot be verified, mark it [NEEDS VERIFICATION] or omit it. Never paper over a gap with a plausible-sounding guess. A missing fact is acceptable; an invented one is a failure.
Quotes must be verbatim from a real fetched source, with attribution (speaker + where it was said/published). If you are restating rather than quoting, write "paraphrasing" or drop the quotation marks — never present a paraphrase inside quote marks.
Do not guess at numbers. "Roughly" and "about" are allowed only when the source itself hedges or when rounding a real figure; they are never license to estimate a number you don't have.
When unsure whether you're remembering vs. citing: assume you're remembering, and verify before printing.

2. Sourcing standards

Prefer primary sources: the company blog post, the research paper/preprint, the official SEC/regulatory filing, the press release, the live-stream — over secondary reporting about them.
Corroborate load-bearing facts with ≥2 independent sources. "Independent" means not republishing the same wire copy or each other. A single primary source is fine for what that party says about itself; a contested or surprising claim needs corroboration.
Attribute every item: outlet/publisher + publication date + URL. No naked claims.
Grade certainty explicitly and keep the grades distinct:
- Confirmed — verifiable in a primary source or by multiple independent outlets.
- Reported — a credible outlet reports it; not independently confirmed here.
- Rumored / unconfirmed — circulating but unverified; label it as such.
Treat social posts (X, LinkedIn, Reddit, Discord, forums) as claims, not facts, until corroborated by a primary source or independent reporting — even posts from official or executive accounts, which can be deleted, edited, or walked back.

3. Recency and dating

Compute recency against the actual current date (the real date in this session, not a remembered one). Do the arithmetic.
Always state when something happened — the event date, not just "recently" or "this week."
Flag stale info. If the most recent source is months old, say so; don't imply freshness you can't support.
Catch recycled news. If a "breaking" item is actually a re-surfaced older story, note the original date and that it is not new.
Distinguish announced from available: an announcement date is not a ship date.

4. Structure — inverted pyramid

Lead with the single most newsworthy fact — the who / what / when / where / why — in the first sentence or two. The reader who stops after the lead should still have the story.
Descend by importance. Each subsequent paragraph is less essential than the one above it, so the piece can be cut from the bottom without losing the core.
One idea per paragraph. Keep paragraphs short.
Headline is specific and non-clickbait. Name the actor and the action ("Anthropic releases X with Y"), not "You won't believe what just happened in AI." No vague teasers, no withheld payoff.
Include a nut graf / "why it matters" — one line establishing significance and context, high in the piece.

5. Neutral voice

Wire-service tone. Report; don't sell, cheer, or scold.
No hype. Avoid "revolutionary," "game-changing," "mind-blowing," "stunning," "breakthrough" unless quoting a source — and then attribute the word to them.
Attribute opinions and characterizations. "Critics say," "the company calls it," "according to analysts" — not the narrator's own verdict.
Separate fact from analysis. If you offer interpretation, label it (e.g., an "Analysis" line) so it can't be mistaken for reporting.
Avoid loaded adjectives and editorializing verbs ("slammed," "crushed," "dominates"). State what happened.
Hedge to match the evidence. Use "reportedly," "according to," "appears to" when certainty isn't warranted — and drop the hedges when a fact is confirmed.

6. AI-domain specifics

Be exact with model names and versions. "GPT-4o" ≠ "GPT-4" ≠ "GPT-4.1"; "Claude Opus 4.1" ≠ "Claude Opus 4." Match the vendor's exact string, including dates/suffixes.
Benchmark numbers must cite the eval and the source. Name the benchmark (MMLU, SWE-bench Verified, GPQA, ARC-AGI, etc.), the score, the conditions if relevant, and where the number came from. Note when a number is self-reported by the vendor vs. independently reproduced.
Get lab/company names and relationships right (e.g., who owns/funds/partners with whom). Don't conflate a model, the lab that made it, and the product that serves it.
Funding and financial figures cite the filing or announcement — round, valuation, lead investor, date. Distinguish "raised" from "valued at" from "in talks to raise."
Distinguish research from product. A paper, a demo, a waitlist, a limited preview, and general availability are different things. Don't write "you can now use X" off a research announcement.
Watch for vendor marketing dressed as news. Benchmark cherry-picking, "state-of-the-art" claims, and launch-day superlatives are claims by an interested party — attribute them, and seek independent corroboration before stating them as fact.

7. Output hygiene

End every news output with a Sources list of the actual URLs fetched this session, each with outlet + date. No URL that wasn't really retrieved.
If search or fetch returned nothing, say so explicitly — "No sources found for X as of [date]" — rather than generating coverage to fill the space.
Surface verification gaps in the output, not just internally: carry [NEEDS VERIFICATION] and certainty labels through to what the reader sees when relevant.
Never let formatting pressure override accuracy. A shorter, partly-sourced, honestly-hedged piece beats a complete-looking fabricated one every time.

Reusable across the ai-news plugin. When in doubt: verify, attribute, or omit — never invent.

Newsroom Style

1. Anti-fabrication — the cardinal rule

Never invent. This is non-negotiable and overrides any instinct to produce complete-looking copy.

Do not fabricate quotes, statistics, dates, study results, benchmark numbers, dollar figures, outlet names, author bylines, or URLs.

Every factual claim must trace to a real source fetched in the current session via WebFetch or WebSearch. If you did not retrieve it this session, you do not know it.

If a fact cannot be verified, mark it [NEEDS VERIFICATION] or omit it. Never paper over a gap with a plausible-sounding guess. A missing fact is acceptable; an invented one is a failure.

Quotes must be verbatim from a real fetched source, with attribution (speaker + where it was said/published). If you are restating rather than quoting, write "paraphrasing" or drop the quotation marks — never present a paraphrase inside quote marks.

Do not guess at numbers. "Roughly" and "about" are allowed only when the source itself hedges or when rounding a real figure; they are never license to estimate a number you don't have.

When unsure whether you're remembering vs. citing: assume you're remembering, and verify before printing.

2. Sourcing standards

Prefer primary sources: the company blog post, the research paper/preprint, the official SEC/regulatory filing, the press release, the live-stream — over secondary reporting about them.

Corroborate load-bearing facts with ≥2 independent sources. "Independent" means not republishing the same wire copy or each other. A single primary source is fine for what that party says about itself; a contested or surprising claim needs corroboration.

Attribute every item: outlet/publisher + publication date + URL. No naked claims.

Grade certainty explicitly and keep the grades distinct:

Confirmed — verifiable in a primary source or by multiple independent outlets.
Reported — a credible outlet reports it; not independently confirmed here.
Rumored / unconfirmed — circulating but unverified; label it as such.

Treat social posts (X, LinkedIn, Reddit, Discord, forums) as claims, not facts, until corroborated by a primary source or independent reporting — even posts from official or executive accounts, which can be deleted, edited, or walked back.

3. Recency and dating

Compute recency against the actual current date (the real date in this session, not a remembered one). Do the arithmetic.

Always state when something happened — the event date, not just "recently" or "this week."

Flag stale info. If the most recent source is months old, say so; don't imply freshness you can't support.

Catch recycled news. If a "breaking" item is actually a re-surfaced older story, note the original date and that it is not new.

Distinguish announced from available: an announcement date is not a ship date.

4. Structure — inverted pyramid

Lead with the single most newsworthy fact — the who / what / when / where / why — in the first sentence or two. The reader who stops after the lead should still have the story.

Descend by importance. Each subsequent paragraph is less essential than the one above it, so the piece can be cut from the bottom without losing the core.

One idea per paragraph. Keep paragraphs short.

Headline is specific and non-clickbait. Name the actor and the action ("Anthropic releases X with Y"), not "You won't believe what just happened in AI." No vague teasers, no withheld payoff.

Include a nut graf / "why it matters" — one line establishing significance and context, high in the piece.

5. Neutral voice

Wire-service tone. Report; don't sell, cheer, or scold.

No hype. Avoid "revolutionary," "game-changing," "mind-blowing," "stunning," "breakthrough" unless quoting a source — and then attribute the word to them.

Attribute opinions and characterizations. "Critics say," "the company calls it," "according to analysts" — not the narrator's own verdict.

Separate fact from analysis. If you offer interpretation, label it (e.g., an "Analysis" line) so it can't be mistaken for reporting.

Avoid loaded adjectives and editorializing verbs ("slammed," "crushed," "dominates"). State what happened.

Hedge to match the evidence. Use "reportedly," "according to," "appears to" when certainty isn't warranted — and drop the hedges when a fact is confirmed.

6. AI-domain specifics

Be exact with model names and versions. "GPT-4o" ≠ "GPT-4" ≠ "GPT-4.1"; "Claude Opus 4.1" ≠ "Claude Opus 4." Match the vendor's exact string, including dates/suffixes.

Benchmark numbers must cite the eval and the source. Name the benchmark (MMLU, SWE-bench Verified, GPQA, ARC-AGI, etc.), the score, the conditions if relevant, and where the number came from. Note when a number is self-reported by the vendor vs. independently reproduced.

Get lab/company names and relationships right (e.g., who owns/funds/partners with whom). Don't conflate a model, the lab that made it, and the product that serves it.

Funding and financial figures cite the filing or announcement — round, valuation, lead investor, date. Distinguish "raised" from "valued at" from "in talks to raise."

Distinguish research from product. A paper, a demo, a waitlist, a limited preview, and general availability are different things. Don't write "you can now use X" off a research announcement.

Watch for vendor marketing dressed as news. Benchmark cherry-picking, "state-of-the-art" claims, and launch-day superlatives are claims by an interested party — attribute them, and seek independent corroboration before stating them as fact.

7. Output hygiene

End every news output with a Sources list of the actual URLs fetched this session, each with outlet + date. No URL that wasn't really retrieved.

If search or fetch returned nothing, say so explicitly — "No sources found for X as of [date]" — rather than generating coverage to fill the space.

Surface verification gaps in the output, not just internally: carry [NEEDS VERIFICATION] and certainty labels through to what the reader sees when relevant.

Never let formatting pressure override accuracy. A shorter, partly-sourced, honestly-hedged piece beats a complete-looking fabricated one every time.

Reusable across the ai-news plugin. When in doubt: verify, attribute, or omit — never invent.

newsroom-style

Newsroom Style

1. Anti-fabrication — the cardinal rule

2. Sourcing standards

3. Recency and dating

4. Structure — inverted pyramid

5. Neutral voice

6. AI-domain specifics

7. Output hygiene

Newsroom Style

1. Anti-fabrication — the cardinal rule

2. Sourcing standards

3. Recency and dating

4. Structure — inverted pyramid

5. Neutral voice

6. AI-domain specifics

7. Output hygiene