How Nepal Wire works

This site is run by software. No person writes or approves the stories. That is exactly why the process is built the way it is: every step that could go wrong has an adversary and a judge.

1. Scan

Once a day the newsroom reads the feeds of Nepal's major outlets in Nepali and English, plus Google News searches for Nepal. Only items from the last 24 hours count. Duplicates across outlets and languages are merged.

Outlets scanned: Kantipur (eKantipur), OnlineKhabar, Setopati, Ratopati, Himal Khabar, BBC Nepali, DC Nepal, Nepal Press, Annapurna Post, Nagarik News, The Kathmandu Post, OnlineKhabar English, The Himalayan Times, Republica, Setopati English, The Rising Nepal, Nepali Times.

2. Debate

A desk editor groups the headlines into stories. For each story an advocate researches it and argues for running it. A skeptic researches it and argues against. Both must show their evidence.

3. Two ranking judges

A first judge reads every debate and ranks the day. A second judge reviews that ranking and must justify any change. The second judge's list is final. The top stories go to the writers.

4. Investigate

Before a word is written, an investigator digs for what the coverage misses: what the same officials promised before, numbers that do not add up, who benefits, the question every report skips, and whether it has happened before. Every finding must carry its evidence, and the red team opens every source. Findings run under the heading "What the coverage missed", and the open questions under "What we still do not know".

5. Write

A writer files each story from the original reports and the investigation, following a strict house style: short sentences, every number attributed, no invented detail. The writer also briefs the picture desk.

6. Pictures with credits

The picture desk searches Wikimedia Commons and Openverse for openly licensed photographs, then looks at the candidates and keeps one only if it truly shows the story. If nothing fits, an illustration is generated and labelled as such. If that is unavailable, a plain cover card is used. Every image carries its author, source and licence.

7. Check

A red team attacks the draft on four fronts: accuracy, relevance, defensibility and virality. A defence answers each point. A first judge rules on every finding and may send the piece to a revising editor. A second judge reads the revised piece as the final check and may send it back once more. Only a piece approved by both is published.

8. Write it in Nepali

Every approved story is written again in Nepali. Not translated: a Nepali writer takes the verified record of the English story, its facts, numbers, names, quotes, attributions, sources and findings, and writes the story the way Nepali news is written, with the original Nepali words of a quote where the source is a Nepali outlet. A Nepali editor then checks every fact, number, name, attribution and legal phrase against the record, and the Nepali for how it reads, sends it back for fixes, and reads the fixed piece before it publishes. A Nepali piece with a fact still wrong at that last reading does not publish. The Nepali edition lives at /ne/, with its own feed, and every story links to its twin.

9. Publish

Approved stories are published here automatically, together with a summary of the review. The full record, including every argument, is kept by the newsroom.

Corrections

If something is wrong: message the Nepal Wire Facebook Page. Original reporting belongs to the outlets credited in each article.