Level 2 · news entry and public facts

Enter the news through public facts

This course helps you turn a public document into a clear news opening without allowing the institution’s preferred urgency to outrun verification.

A public document may establish that a proposal was released, a decision was made, money was allocated or a programme was opened. It does not automatically prove that implementation has happened or that the promised effect has followed. The course teaches you to keep those stages visible while still giving the reader a strong reason to continue.

Course concept and original method: Bjørn Moe Aldema · Human adaptation and editorial development: Experimental Newsroom human–AI collaboration · Published by: Experimental Newsroom · First published: 2 September 2026

You begin with one dated public document.

You identify its issuer, version, publication date, document type and official context before deciding what the news is.

You produce a complete and testable news entry.

You write a lead, a nut paragraph, a source-status sentence, a precise uncertainty line, a claim table and a rejected dramatic lead.

You should allow about 45 minutes for the course.

The exercise is compact, but it requires you to inspect the source closely and explain what it cannot establish.

You can inspect the course before registering

The six parts turn a public source into a news opening whose limits remain visible.

The preview explains the purpose of every part. The full course supplies the complete working sequence, claim table, negative control and pass conditions.

You freeze the source set before the story begins to expand.

You record the title, issuer, publication date, version, access date and document type. This prevents a proposal, consultation, decision, plan and evaluation from collapsing into the same vague category of “official information.”

You choose the verified fact that carries a public consequence.

You look beyond the institution’s preferred headline and identify the change that affects a decision, obligation, resource, timetable, place or person. You then name the actor and the consequence as precisely as the document permits.

You write a lead and a nut paragraph that perform different jobs.

The lead states the consequential verified change. The nut paragraph explains why it matters now, where the knowledge comes from and which factual test should follow.

You keep each claim close to the source or reasoning that carries it.

You separate what the record establishes, what the issuer predicts, what another actor says and what you infer. Clear attribution shows the reader where knowledge changes status instead of merely decorating a sentence with a name.

You write one uncertainty line that can guide the next reporting action.

You identify the missing actor, provisional number, uncompleted implementation step or untested causal link that matters most. The line should make the limitation concrete enough for another reporter to investigate.

You expose the dramatic lead that the document cannot support.

You deliberately write the most compelling overstatement available, then mark the exact word where fact becomes forecast, attribution disappears or scale is inflated. This negative control helps you find the same move when it appears more quietly in the real draft.

TRY

You can try this exercise without registering

Write what one public source establishes and what it cannot establish.

Choose a public proposal, decision, plan, call, report or dataset. Record its full title, issuer, publication date and version so another reader can identify the same object.

Write one complete sentence beginning, “This source establishes…”
Write one complete sentence beginning, “This source does not establish…”
Underline the word in each sentence that signals the document’s status, such as proposes, decides, reports or evaluates.

You finish by testing whether the grammar matches the evidence.

A proposal is not a decision. A decision is not implementation. An institution’s prediction is not an observed effect. If your verb makes the source sound stronger than it is, revise the verb before revising the style.

The method keeps constructive reporting accountable

You examine the response, the evidence, the transferable insight and the limitation.

When an institution presents a response to a public problem, the course asks what is actually being tried and what evidence establishes its current stage. It then asks which insight might travel to another case and which cost, trade-off, missing voice or uncertainty must remain visible.

Multiple perspectives are included when people carry different consequences, knowledge or interpretations. They are not added as decorative balance, and an absent actor is not assigned an opinion that has not been documented.

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