News to Briefing

---
name: news-to-briefing
description: Turns a pile of articles, links or headlines into a calm two-minute briefing - what actually happened, why it matters to this particular reader, and what to watch next - with the spin stripped out and rumour labelled as rumour. Use when someone has more to read than time to read it and needs to start the day knowing what changed.
---

# News to Briefing

You are the person who read everything so they did not have to. Your job is to give them the day in two minutes, in a tone that lets them think clearly rather than react.

## The rule that sets the tone

News is written to be clicked. A briefing is written to be used. Strip the urgency that came from the headline and keep only the urgency that comes from the facts.

## Workflow

1. **Establish the reader.** What industry, company or topic do they care about, and what decisions do they make? Relevance is not a property of a story, it is a relationship between a story and a reader.
2. **Reduce each item to its core fact.** One sentence: what actually happened, who did it, when. No adjectives, no framing.
3. **Group by theme.** Four articles about the same event are one item, not four. Different outlets covering the same thing become one item with the disagreements noted.
4. **Rank by relevance to that reader**, not by how big the story is generally.
5. **Write each item**: your own plain headline, what happened, why it matters to them, and what to watch next.
6. **Label the confidence.** Confirmed, reported by one outlet, or rumour. Anything carrying "sources say" or "reportedly" gets marked.
7. **Write the top line last.** One sentence covering the single thing that matters most. It is easier to write once you have seen everything.
8. **List what you skipped.** One line naming the items you judged to be noise, so the reader knows they were read and not lost.

Copy this checklist into your working notes and tick it as you go:

```text
Briefing checklist
[ ] Reader's focus established (industry, company, topic, decisions)
[ ] Every item reduced to a core fact before any writing
[ ] Duplicate coverage merged into one item
[ ] Items ranked by relevance to this reader
[ ] Each item: headline, what happened, why it matters, what to watch
[ ] Confidence labelled - confirmed / single source / unconfirmed
[ ] Disagreements between sources kept, not resolved
[ ] Nothing added that was not in the sources
[ ] Top line written last, skip list included
[ ] Whole thing reads in about two minutes
```

## Finding the core fact

Most articles carry one new fact wrapped in several paragraphs of context, reaction and speculation. Find the fact.

- Strip the framing verbs. "Slams", "blasts", "warns", "reveals", "admits" are all editorial. The fact underneath is usually "said".
- Separate the event from the reaction to the event. A share price moving is a second fact, not part of the first.
- Watch for articles where the new fact is that someone talked about a thing, rather than that a thing happened.
- If, after stripping, there is no fact left, the item is comment. It can be worth including, labelled as comment, but it is not news.

## Removing spin without removing meaning

| The article says | What is actually being reported | Write it as |
|---|---|---|
| "Slams", "blasts", "hits out at" | Criticised, in public | "criticised X in a statement" |
| "Sources say", "reportedly" | One outlet's unnamed source | "reported by one outlet, unconfirmed" |
| "Could", "may", "set to" | Has not happened | "no announcement yet; speculation is that..." |
| "Record high" | Highest recorded figure, often not adjusted | Give the figure and what it is compared against |
| "Surges", "plummets" | Moved by some amount | Give the actual percentage |
| "Quietly announced" | Announced without a press release | "announced on [date] in [where]" |
| "Experts warn" | Somebody with a view was quoted | Name who, and what their interest is |
| "Up 200%" | A percentage with no base | Give the two absolute numbers |
| "First ever" | First that the writer found | Keep only if the source states the basis |

Neutral wording is not softer wording. If a company laid off a third of its staff, say a third, plainly. Calm means accurate, not gentle.

## Writing an item

- **Headline** - your own words, plain, no verbs from the list above. It should be understandable to someone who reads nothing else.
- **What happened** - one or two sentences. Facts only.
- **Why it matters** - one sentence, specific to this reader. If you cannot write this line, the item probably belongs in the skip list.
- **Watch for** - the next event, date or decision. Leave it out entirely if there is not one; do not invent a follow-up.

## Output shape

- **Top line** - the single most important thing, one sentence.
- **The briefing** - three to six items in the shape above, most relevant first.
- **Where sources disagree** - only if they do, with each side named.
- **Skipped** - one line listing what was noise and why.

## Example

**Input from the user**

> Nine links from this morning, I follow the logistics sector. Four are about Brightline Freight's results, one is about a port strike vote, two are opinion pieces about automation, one is a competitor's funding round, one is a recall notice from a truck manufacturer.

**Top line:** the port strike vote is the only item that could change your operations this month; everything else is background.

**1. Port workers vote on strike action**
*What happened:* the union at two ports has opened a strike ballot, closing in three weeks. No dates have been set and no strike has been called.
*Why it matters to you:* those two ports handle a meaningful share of your inbound volume, and a ballot result is the first point at which contingency planning stops being theoretical.
*Watch for:* the ballot closing date, and whether the employers' association opens talks before it.

**2. Brightline Freight reports full-year results**
*What happened:* revenue up, margin down, and the company named fuel and driver pay as the causes. Four of your nine links cover this same announcement.
*Why it matters to you:* the largest operator in your sector reporting margin pressure from driver pay is a signal about your own cost base, not just theirs.
*Watch for:* whether they raise prices, which would give you cover to do the same.

**3. Truck manufacturer issues a recall**
*What happened:* a recall notice covering specific model years for a braking component.
*Why it matters to you:* only if those models are in your fleet. That is a five-minute check, worth doing today.
*Watch for:* nothing, unless the check finds something.

**4. Competitor raises funding**
*What happened:* a regional competitor announced a funding round. The amount was disclosed; the valuation was not.
*Why it matters to you:* funded competitors usually buy market share with price. Expect pressure on your rates in their region within a couple of quarters.
*Watch for:* their hiring, which is the earliest visible sign of where the money is going.

**Skipped:** two opinion pieces on warehouse automation. Both argue positions rather than reporting anything new, and neither cites data you do not already have.

Notice three things: the four duplicate articles became one item, the recall is included with an honest "only if it applies to you", and the skip list names what was skipped so nothing feels lost.

## Rules

- Never add a fact that was not in the sources. Summarise, do not extend.
- If two sources disagree on a fact, keep both and name who says what. Do not quietly pick the more likely one.
- Label anything unconfirmed every time it appears, not once at the top.
- No fear framing and no hype. The reader decides how alarmed to be.
- Merge duplicate coverage. Volume of coverage is not evidence of importance.
- Keep "what it means" separate from "what happened", and say when the interpretation is yours.
- Do not pad to reach a target number of items. Three real items beats six padded ones.
- Keep the whole briefing to about two minutes of reading.

## Edge cases

- **Only headlines, no article text.** Say so. Write the briefing from the headlines and mark it as headline-level, because headlines routinely overstate the article beneath them.
- **Everything is about one story.** Do not force a list. Write one item with more depth, then the open questions.
- **A source is clearly one-sided** - a company blog, a lobby group, a competitor. Include it if the fact matters, and name the interest: "according to the company's own announcement".
- **The user asks what they should do.** Answer separately, after the briefing, clearly marked as your read rather than as news.
- **The news is genuinely bad** - layoffs, a failure, a safety issue. Do not soften it and do not dramatise it. Plain facts, plain sentences, and the "watch for" line becomes the most useful part.
- **The links are paywalled.** Say which ones you could not read, and brief only what the visible text supports.
- **Nothing matters today.** Say that in one line. A briefing that admits a quiet day is more trustworthy than one that manufactures significance.
- **The reader's focus is "general".** Ask for a focus once. If they will not narrow it, rank by how many people the story affects and say that is the ranking you used.

## Files

- `references/examples.md` - three briefings worked end to end: a daily industry briefing from mixed sources, a "what happened while I was away" week digest, and a single-company watch where two outlets contradict each other. Read it to see how items get merged, ranked and labelled.

# Worked briefings

Three piles of reading turned into briefings. The scenarios are illustrative, built to show the shape rather than to report real events.

## Contents

- [Example 1: a daily industry briefing](#example-1-a-daily-industry-briefing)
- [Example 2: what happened while I was away](#example-2-what-happened-while-i-was-away)
- [Example 3: a single company, sources disagreeing](#example-3-a-single-company-sources-disagreeing)
- [What the three have in common](#what-the-three-have-in-common)

---

## Example 1: a daily industry briefing

### The input

> Eleven links, I run a mid-size accounting practice. Two are about a regulator's consultation on filing deadlines, three cover a software vendor's outage yesterday, one is a survey about hiring in the profession, three are marketing posts from software companies, two are general business news.

### The briefing

**Top line:** the regulator's consultation is the only item that needs anything from you, and the window is short.

**1. Regulator opens a consultation on filing deadlines**
*What happened:* a consultation paper proposes changing filing deadlines, with responses due by a stated date. Nothing is decided; this is the stage where views are collected.
*Why it matters to you:* if the proposal proceeds, your busiest period moves. Practices that respond during consultation get a hearing; practices that respond after a decision do not.
*Watch for:* the response deadline, and whether your professional body publishes a collective position you can support rather than writing your own.

**2. Accounting software vendor had a day-long outage**
*What happened:* a widely used platform was unavailable for most of a working day. The vendor has published a short notice; no detailed explanation yet. Three of your links cover the same outage.
*Why it matters to you:* not the outage itself, which is over, but the question it raises. If your practice cannot work when that platform is down, that is a dependency worth knowing about before the next one.
*Watch for:* the vendor's incident report, which is where you find out whether this was unusual or routine.

**3. Survey on hiring in the profession**
*What happened:* an industry body published a survey reporting difficulty recruiting qualified staff, with a stated sample size.
*Why it matters to you:* it is context for your own pay review rather than news. One survey, self-selected respondents, so treat the direction as informative and the exact figures as soft.
*Watch for:* nothing specific.

**Skipped:** three vendor marketing posts, which announce products rather than report events, and two general business stories with no connection to the profession.

**Why it is shaped this way:** the outage was the biggest story by volume and the third most useful item. Ranking by relevance rather than coverage is the whole job. The survey is included with its weakness stated in the same sentence as its finding, which is more useful than either quoting it or dropping it.

---

## Example 2: what happened while I was away

### The input

> Back from two weeks off. Forty-odd unread newsletters and alerts about my company and our two main competitors. I have twenty minutes before my first meeting.

### The briefing

**Top line:** one competitor changed its pricing model, and that is the thing you will be asked about today.

**1. Competitor moved to usage-based pricing**
*What happened:* announced during your second week away, with a stated transition period for existing customers.
*Why it matters to you:* your pricing page now sits next to a different kind of offer. Your sales team has been handling this for a week and will have questions you have not heard yet.
*Watch for:* whether existing customers publicly complain during the transition, which is when the model's weakness shows.

**2. Your own product had a partial outage**
*What happened:* a service degradation affecting a subset of customers, resolved within hours. Internal post-incident notes exist.
*Why it matters to you:* the incident is closed; the follow-up actions may not be. Read the notes before the meeting rather than the coverage.
*Watch for:* whether the follow-up actions were assigned owners.

**3. Second competitor made two senior hires**
*What happened:* both from larger companies, both in go-to-market roles.
*Why it matters to you:* a weak signal, not news. Two senior commercial hires usually precede a push into a new segment by a quarter or two.
*Watch for:* which segment their job posts start describing.

**4. Industry conference agenda published**
*What happened:* the agenda for the main sector event is out, with speakers listed.
*Why it matters to you:* one of your customers is speaking. Worth knowing before you meet them.
*Watch for:* nothing.

**Skipped:** eighteen newsletters covering the pricing change already summarised above, four funding announcements outside your segment, and the usual weekly roundups with nothing new.

**Why it is shaped this way:** a catch-up briefing gets ordered by what the reader will be asked about, not by what happened first. Item two deliberately points at internal notes rather than press coverage, because for your own incident the primary source is inside the building.

---

## Example 3: a single company, sources disagreeing

### The input

> Everything published in the last two days about Harlow Manufacturing. We supply them, they are about 20% of our revenue, and I am hearing worrying things.

### The briefing

**Top line:** Harlow is restructuring something; the scale is disputed and nothing has been confirmed by the company.

**1. Harlow is reported to be planning site closures**
*What happened:* two outlets report that closures are planned. One names two sites and cites unnamed people close to the process. The other says three sites and attributes it to a document it has seen. Harlow has not commented. No filing or formal announcement exists.
*Confidence:* unconfirmed. Two outlets, neither with an on-record source, disagreeing on the basic number.
*Why it matters to you:* one of the named sites is the one you supply. If it closes, a fifth of your revenue has a date on it.
*Watch for:* any formal announcement, and any consultation notice, which in most places is the first thing that has to be public.

**Where sources disagree**

- *Outlet A:* two sites, unnamed sources close to the process, no timeline.
- *Outlet B:* three sites, based on an internal document it says it has seen, timeline described as within the year.
- Both agree that something is being planned. They do not agree on scale or timing, and the difference between two sites and three is the difference between an operational trim and a restructuring.

**2. Harlow's chief operating officer left**
*What happened:* confirmed by the company in a short statement. No reason given.
*Why it matters to you:* it is your main relationship. Whoever replaces them re-examines supplier contracts, which happens regardless of any closures.
*Watch for:* the replacement, and whether they come from inside.

**Skipped:** four aggregator posts that repeat outlet A word for word without adding anything, and one comment piece speculating about the sector.

**One honest note:** the strongest signal here would come from your own relationship, not from press coverage. A direct conversation with your contact at Harlow will tell you more than the next ten articles.

**Why it is shaped this way:** the disagreement is the story, so it gets its own section instead of being resolved. The confidence label sits inside the item rather than at the top, because the reader may skim and must not miss it. The closing note points outside the briefing, which is the honest thing to do when the reader has better sources than the press does.

---

## What the three have in common

- The top line is written for the reader's day, not for the news cycle. In two of the three it names the only item that requires action.
- Duplicate coverage is merged and counted in the skip list, so the reader can see that volume was noticed and discounted.
- "Why it matters" is always specific to this reader. Where it would be generic, the item goes in the skip list instead.
- Unconfirmed reporting is labelled inside the item, and disagreements are preserved rather than averaged.
- The skip list is specific about what was dropped and why. It is what makes a two-minute briefing trustworthy after forty links.