How we work

Most of The Lantern is written by software from public records, and no person edits those articles before they are published. That makes it more important, not less, that you can see exactly how the work is done. This page is that account.

Where stories come from

Public records. Nearly every article starts from something a government body published: a council packet, a county agenda, a recall notice, a weather alert, an inspection, a federal grant, a monthly jobs report. The record is printed at the foot of the article, with a link to the agency that published it wherever the agency gives one.

We read records the way any member of the public can. Our software tells every government server who it is, and when a site blocks automated readers we do not disguise the software or work around the block. We go without until the office that runs the site lets the paper in.

Partner newsrooms. Some articles are reporting by other newsrooms that license their work for republication. We publish them whole and unedited, under their bylines, labelled as republished and linked to the original. We did not report or check them.

People. A story reported by a person carries that person’s byline. Tips reach us through the tip line.

How a machine-written article is made

Software reads the record, and the document it links to when there is one, such as the full text of a council packet. It is also shown related records and the paper’s earlier coverage of the same subject, so a story can say what came before. An AI model then drafts the article following the paper’s house style: plain words, the news first, nothing padded. How long an article runs depends on how much the record supports, never on a target.

What is checked, and what is not

Every figure and date is checked against the record before publication. Dollar amounts, counts, percentages and dates, including the day of the week, must appear in the record the sentence cites. A draft that fails gets one more attempt with the problems listed. If that fails too, the AI draft is not published: the article appears in a plainer form assembled straight from the record, and says so.

The check has limits, and you should know them. It cannot tell whether a true number is used honestly, whether “rose” should have been “fell”, or whether the record itself is wrong. It does not check a sentence with no figure in it. Articles republished from partners, and stories reported by people, are not checked by it at all. The full detail is on the corrections page.

Style is checked too, but never holds a story back. A draft that breaks the house style gets one rewrite. Accuracy can stop a draft; style cannot.

The labels on every article

Each article says how it was made, in words chosen to be exact:

• AI-drafted · Fact-checked written by software and passed the check above.
• AI draft withheld · Assembled record the draft failed the check, so you are reading the record itself, put in order.
• Assembled from the record no draft was written; the record is set out plainly.
• Reported by a person · Not machine-checked it rests on the reporter named on it.
• Republished · Reported by a partner newsroom · Not machine-checked another newsroom’s work, unedited.

Private people

No article written by software names a private citizen. Officials may be named in their public roles; residents may not. That rule is enforced in the software, not left to judgement: before a document reaches the drafting software, the names of residents who spoke at public comment, and of people who applied for a rezoning, variance or permit, and their agents, are removed. Campaign contributions are reported only as totals, never by donor.

We do not publish a police blotter, arrest records or booking photographs, and we do not publish children’s sports results.

Places and scope

When a figure covers more than New Carlisle (a national recall, a statewide count, the sheriff’s whole county), the article says so. We would rather tell you a number is not about your town than let you assume it is.

Pictures

The pictures beside stories are illustrations, never photographs of the events. Since late October 2026 each new story gets one generated with AI for it, produced for the paper by Sunset Media, and its caption says it was generated; older stories carry line drawings made for the paper. For the generated ones, software, not a person, checks each one for lettering, for whether it shows the intended scene, and for anyone shown hurt or in danger. They show no real person, and their places are imagined. How they are made is on the credits page.

When we are wrong, and when the record changes

We do not silently edit. A correction is stated on the story. When an agency revises a record it published, the article is rewritten from the new version and a note at the top says what changed and when we noticed. Send a correction through the corrections form; corrections are read before anything else.

Independence

No government body, advertiser or partner newsroom sees an article The Lantern writes before it is published. The only way an outside body changes one afterwards is by revising the public record it was written from, and then the article says so. The Lantern is free to read, and we intend to keep it that way. Who publishes it is on the About page; what we collect about readers is on the privacy page.

This page changes when the software does. What changed and when is on the changelog.