What is Verity?

Who's behind Verity?

How is Verity funded?

Is Verity political?

What are Verity's values?

How does Verity use AI?

How does Verity define Facts in its stories?

How are spins/narratives crafted?

Are your narratives direct summaries of the linked sources?

How do you choose what stories to cover?

How do you keep Verity stories balanced?

How many and which news sites does Verity aggregate articles from?

How do you determine the bias of different sources?

Why might I like Verity?

Why should I read narratives I disagree with?

Why don't you block all "disinformation" / "fake news"?

What is establishment bias?

Do you use trustworthy sources?

What are Verity News Stories?

What are Verity Context Stories?

What are Verity Deep Dives?

What are Verity Controversies?

How do you curate Controversies?

Who are the public figures on your website, and why are they relevant?

What is the Verity Bias Split tool?

What are Verity Scores?

Is there a Verity app?

Are you on social media?

Do you share all your news stories on social media?

How can I provide feedback?

How can I help?

How do I sign up for the newsletter?

What do I do if I have a problem with the newsletter?

Can I put ads on Verity?

What's your privacy policy?

I'm a researcher — how does Verity benefit me?

I've stopped reading the news altogether — can Verity benefit me?

What languages are supported by Verity and are you planning to expand outside the US?

FAQs

What is Verity?

Verity is an independent news organization where journalists with AI tools reveal the full, nuanced truth behind every major news story by separating fact from spin. Please refer to our About page for more details.

Who's behind Verity?

The Improve the News Foundation (ITN), a nonprofit that was founded in October 2020 and originated from an MIT research project led by Prof. Max Tegmark. Since our launch, we've grown into an expansive global team with diverse intellectual backgrounds and nationalities. For more details, please visit our About page.

How is Verity funded?

Verity is run by ITN, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization funded entirely by the generous support of its donors. More details can be found in our About page and tax returns.

Is Verity political?

No. Although we respect that people across the political spectrum disagree on how the world ought to be, we believe that news should help everyone agree on how the world is. We seek to present views from across the political spectrum, and encourage users to understand media bias from all sides.

What are Verity's values?

Scientific truth-seeking: We believe that democracy works best when voters know the truth and that science is humanity's best truth-finding system.
Political impartiality: Although we respect that people across the political spectrum disagree on how the world ought to be, news should help everyone agree on how the world is. We therefore work to separate opinion ("ought") from fact ("is").
Privacy and security: We seek to counter current patterns of news consumption, in which online news feeds managed by algorithms of powerful technology companies treat newsreaders' attention and personal data as a product to sell to advertisers.
Empowerment: We consider it patronizing and anti-democratic for governments and companies to decide which facts newsreaders should not see and which narratives they can't handle. We trust our users to think for themselves, empowering them with tools to quickly and easily find whatever facts and narratives they are interested in.

How does Verity use AI?

At ITN, we prioritize responsible AI tools that enhance rather than replace human work. We use AI to assist with tasks such as drafting social media content, drafting stories, curating controversies, and curating and grouping related news articles. However, no content is purely "AI-generated" — it all undergoes rigorous human editing and review.

How does Verity define Facts in its stories?

Determining what is true is notoriously hard even without vested interests at play: top physicists believed in the wrong theory of gravity for centuries. We ask our editorial team to prioritize primary sources where possible, while ensuring secondary sources (e.g. news media) are also used to provide broader context.

For controversies about what happened, we define a fact as something that sources on opposite sides of the relevant controversy agree on (for example, CNN and Fox News for a U.S. abortion story).

For controversies about what was said or claimed, we prefer using a primary source, defined as a first-hand, original account of an event or topic, created at the time by a person or organization who was directly involved or witnessed it. This of course does not mean a primary source is inherently truthful: We therefore treat a claim from a primary source as the fact that this person or organization has made this claim, rather than making a value judgment about whether that claim is true.

How are spins/narratives crafted?

We review what both mainstream and non-mainstream media sources are saying on a topic and pick the prevailing contrasting narratives. These are most often left/right or pro-establishment/establishment-critical, but also include labels such as Anti-China, Pro-China, or Technoskeptic.

Are your narratives direct summaries of the linked sources?

While our narratives are inspired by and reference linked sources, they may not represent direct summaries of individual articles or posts. We synthesize information from multiple sources and select representative links that best align with the presented arguments.

How do you choose what stories to cover?

Our editorial team covers as many developments as it can each day, spanning a broad range of subjects. We have specialists in geopolitics, as well as social issues and topics such as tech and climate change. Given our primarily US-based audience, we make a concerted effort to provide daily coverage of major headlines in US media, while also ensuring coverage of global and under-reported issues. Our stories are sourced from our automatically curated list of the day's main headlines, supplemented by manual review of traditional and alternative media, trending news on social media, and recommendations from the wider Verity team and users.

How do you keep Verity stories balanced?

Each Verity story is reviewed by multiple team members with different backgrounds and political perspectives, who all aim to create coverage that is as balanced and sensitive as possible. Our goal is to include sources from a wide political range, and keep opinion separate from fact.

How many and which news sites does Verity aggregate articles from?

We aggregate articles from both traditional and new media, including numerous legacy news outlets like Fox and The New York Times, international outlets like Al Jazeera and the Korea Herald, tech publications like Tech Crunch, and independent sites like CounterPunch, as well as alternative news platforms such as Substack, X and Facebook. Our team is constantly hard at work expanding our source pool, which currently sits at approximately 5,000 publications.

How do you determine the bias of different sources?

We evaluate the bias of a source by analyzing a selection of articles on various topics involving left-right or establishment controversies. Our in-house AI tool scores each article and calculates an average stance for each topic. These topical stance ratings are then combined to produce overall left-right and establishment bias scores. A team of human reviewers, with diverse political leanings, oversees the entire process, analyzing random article samples and any outliers to ensure accuracy and reliability. This method builds on research by Max Tegmark and Samantha D'Alonzo demonstrating how media bias can be objectively measured from raw data without human input.

Why might I like Verity?

You're busy: Most people lack the time to read a range of sources to get an unbiased understanding of what's really going on. Verity does this for you by conveniently summarizing trustworthy facts — with source links that you can verify yourself.
Your voice is heard and respected: Facts aside, you'll also find fairly presented competing narratives — including your own — regardless of where your home is on the political spectrum.
It's useful to know what other people think: By understanding other people's arguments, you understand why they do what they do — and have a better chance of persuading them.
You won't get mind-hacked: Many website algorithms push you (for ad revenue) into a filter bubble by reinforcing the narratives you impulse-click on. Just as it's healthier to choose what you eat deliberately rather than impulsively, it's more empowering to choose your news diet deliberately.
You're bored: Many news outlets are so partisan that their coverage gets boringly narrow. Quality debates about important controversies can be quite interesting!
You don't want to be part of the problem: If you spend your time consuming biased news that others profit from, you're feeding the incentive structure that makes people in power manipulate you and others.

Why should I read narratives I disagree with?

It's often argued that we should silence those we are convinced are wrong, to avoid giving them a platform. We strongly disagree. Even more important than their freedom to speak, is your freedom to hear. We reject the patronizing premise that your mind is too frail to read poor arguments without falling for them. We believe that democracy functions best when we can all listen to dissenting opinions and make an informed decision on what arguments we believe are the most compelling. Our narratives are crafted with consideration for the most convincing points made by opposing sides, so that our users get the full picture on any debate.

Why don't you block all "disinformation" / "fake news"?

Because figuring out the truth can be hard! If it were simple enough to be delegated to a corporate or governmental fact-checking committee, we would no longer need science. Top physicists spent centuries believing in the wrong theory of gravity, and truth-finding gets no easier when politics and vested interests enter; the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's novel 1984 reminds us that one of the oldest propaganda tricks is to accuse the other side of spreading disinformation.

What is establishment bias?

When we used Machine Learning to objectively classify a million news articles by their bias here, the algorithm uncovered two main bias axes: the well-known left-right bias as well as establishment bias. The establishment view is what all big parties and powers agree on, which varies between countries and over time. For example, the old establishment view that women shouldn't be allowed to vote was successfully challenged. Verity makes it easy for you to compare the perspectives of the pro-establishment mainstream media with those of smaller establishment-critical news outlets that you won't find in most other news aggregators.

How close is each media outlet to power? See, e.g., Wikipedia's lists of left, libertarian and right alternative media and this classification: does the news source normally accept or challenge claims by powerful entities such as the government and large corporations?

Do you use trustworthy sources?

Yes. We prioritize the use of primary sources, when these are available. We also draw from a wide range of outlets — from both traditional and alternative media — across the political spectrum to ensure that everyone can find a source they trust.

What are Verity News Stories?

Our News Stories are our daily news coverage, distilled into easy-to-read summaries that extract both the key facts (from primary/opposing sources) and the key narratives (where the sources differ). They are drafted with the assistance of AI, with rigorous review and editing by humans.

What are Verity Context Stories?

Our Context Stories follow a similar format to our daily news stories but offer a broader overview of a general topic. Designed to be more evergreen, they provide the background needed to understand the larger issues behind the daily headlines.

What are Verity Deep Dives?

Our Deep Dives allow you to read about controversial and newsworthy topics in ever-increasing depth. To create these, we employ LLMs to conduct extensive research and draft detailed reports. These drafts are then rigorously reviewed and refined by human editors to ensure accuracy and impartiality.

What are Verity Controversies?

Our Controversies provide a collection of predictions on contentious issues, made by various public figures, including politicians, business leaders, journalists, political pundits, media personalities and academics. These cover a wide range of topics, including conflicts, politics, climate, and technology. Once a controversy is resolved, you can easily see who was right and who was wrong and, over time, whose predictions are more reliable.

How do you curate Controversies?

We use AI to automatically extract and classify claims from a range of sources, including both old and new media, based on a given topic of debate. These claims are then manually reviewed by a team of humans and displayed within our controversies.

Who are the public figures on your website, and why are they relevant?

The public figures on Verity include politicians, scientists, academics, journalists and business leaders. The individuals in our list are either involved in or associated with major news stories and the broader debates surrounding them.

What is the Verity Bias Split tool?

Our Bias Split tool enables you to choose what news to consume deliberately, rather than impulsively. We provide two main sliders; a left/right one so that you can see what different sides of the political spectrum are reporting, and an establishment slider so you can see what all major parties agree on, as well as what the establishment-critical side is saying. This way, you can make up your own mind.

What are Verity Scores?

The forthcoming Verity Scores will be ratings assigned to public figures based on the accuracy of their resolved claims. The more often their predictions prove correct, the higher their score, serving as an indicator of reliability and trust.

Is there a Verity app?

Yes: We have free apps for iOS here and Android here.

How can I provide feedback?

We always welcome feedback! Whether positive or negative, please let us know your thoughts here.

How can I help?

If you'd like to work for us, please email contact@improvethenews.org. We hire for a wide variety of roles including in software engineering, quality assurance, data curation, editorial, multimedia, social media and operations. If you have ideas or suggestions for improving our site or apps, please fill out this feedback form. If you'd like to support us with a donation, we hope to launch a donation page soon. Thanks in advance!

Can I put ads on Verity?

No. Verity does not take any form of advertising.

What's your privacy policy?

Our informal privacy policy is "don't be creepy." We're not trying to profit from you, and we'll never share or sell your data. You'll find our full privacy policy here.

I'm a researcher — how does Verity benefit me?

Verity's archives provide a chronology of coverage on a vast array of topics. Researchers have access to the prevailing facts and narratives of a specific topic that may have changed over time, which can help to inform historical analysis.

I've stopped reading the news altogether — can Verity benefit me?

Yes! Verity provides a digest of facts and narratives in an objective and nuanced format. For those overwhelmed by today's media landscape, subscribing to our newsletter can be an efficient and objective way to keep up with current events and the narratives that shape them, without experiencing the toxic dynamics of filter bubbles and echo chambers.

What languages are supported by Verity and are you planning to expand outside the US?

For now, Verity is an English-only endeavor, but we may expand to more global audiences in the future. We do seek to curate a wide variety of stories worldwide in our coverage from all continents.