For local news / NewsEnough
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A place-scoped feed of items built from public records is free to any local title that still publishes, in return for an attribution link.

Notice 08, For local newsLast true on

Nothing here is signed. There is no partner, no trial and no agreement in place, and the product itself is not open. This page states the offer so that a newsroom of three people can read it in one sitting and know what it would be agreeing to.

What is offered

  • A place-scoped item feed, free, to local titles that still publish. Each item carries its citations and its confidence label, and the feed costs nothing beyond the attribution link.
  • A white-label feed or an API at tiered pricing, where a title wants the items inside its own pages rather than linked from them.
  • The same corpus in both cases. There is no better version of an item held back for the paying tier.
Attribution
Mandatory on every item a licensee publishes, in the form the licence sets out. It is a condition of the feed rather than a courtesy, and it is the whole of what the free feed asks for.
The embargo window
A licensee publishes an item only after the window on that item has run. The length of the window belongs in the licence and is not stated here, because it is not settled.
The text
A licensee has no right to alter the text of an item. It may publish the item or decline it, and it may write its own story from the same documents, which are named in every item.
Corrections
A correction travels the licensee feed as a first-class item, in the same delivery window as the original travelled. It is never a silent replacement of the text a reader already saw. Every correction is published in the corrections log as well.

What this is and what it is not

It reads public records and primary documents: planning registers, committee agendas and minutes, licensing registers, court lists, consultations and the statistics agencies. What it reads is listed in the sources register, and how it decides to publish is on the methodology page.

It does not employ reporters. It does not replace a newsroom. It cannot cover a decision taken in a corridor, a story that begins with a person telephoning a reporter, or anything else with no document behind it. A title that takes this feed still has to do the work only a person can do, and the feed exists to give that person back the hours the registers take.

It cannot cover what has no document behind it.

Every published sentence cites a source and an uncited factual sentence fails the accuracy gate absolutely. Where the corpus holds nothing on a subject, the product says it holds nothing rather than writing around the hole.

The precedent, and the plain status of this offer

The BBC Local Democracy Reporting Service has already shown that local titles will take syndicated civic content and print it under their own mastheads. The LDRS is the precedent for the shape of this offer and for nothing else. There is no partnership between NewsEnough and the BBC, and none has been discussed.

No title has taken this feed, because the feed does not run. No licence has been granted and no terms have been signed. If an editor wants to read the draft terms before there is anything to sign, the address on this site reaches a person.

When there is a partner, this page will name them.