Standards

These are the rules behind every story on this site. A story that breaks one of them is fixed or pulled, and the change is logged on the corrections page.

AI-assisted drafting

News stories are drafted with AI tools. The drafts are checked against the cited sources before they run. Every figure, date and name in a story has to appear in a source listed at the bottom of that story. If a claim cannot be traced to a source, it does not run. Each news story carries a line saying it was produced with AI assistance.

Primary sources first

Every news story must cite at least one primary source: the filing, the government release, the company announcement, the dataset or the study itself. Secondary sources, such as news coverage of the primary document, are marked as secondary. The sources list shows which is which.

Vendor data is labeled

Software and service companies publish a lot of the data in this field, usually drawn from their own customers. That data is useful and it is not neutral. When a number comes from a vendor, the sources list marks it as vendor data, and the story says so where the number appears.

News and opinion are kept apart

• News reports facts. The first block of each story, labeled The News, contains only facts that trace to a source. Analysis sits in its own block, labeled Analysis, and explains what a fact means for a small business without telling the reader what to do.
• Takes are opinion. They carry a signed byline, an Opinion tag and the line “Opinion. Not a news report.” They are written by a named person who is responsible for them.
• Explainers answer one question in depth. They mark their own judgment as judgment, and they label every source as vendor data or independent work.

No partisan politics

Midwatch Radar covers policy where it changes costs, rules or opportunities for small business, such as tax deadlines, licensing, tariffs and AI regulation. It does not cover elections, endorse candidates or parties, or use partisan language. Takes may argue a position on a business question. They do not take sides between parties.

Quotes and numbers

Quotes are short and attributed. Numbers appear as the source states them. When a story compares numbers from different sources, it says whether they count the same thing.

Timestamps

Every story shows when it was published and when it was last updated, in Eastern Time. If a story changes in a way that matters, the update time changes and the change is noted.

Corrections

If a story is wrong, it is corrected in the open. See the corrections policy and log, or write to info@midwatchops.com.