About SHOTS

SHOTS is short news that ends. One story sits on one card, in about five hundred characters, with the photograph above it and a link to the publication that reported it underneath. When you have read it, it stops. There is no next paragraph and no infinite feed.

Where the stories come from

Two places, and every card says which. Some are written by the publications themselves and published here directly. Others are condensed by an editor from a story somebody else reported, in which case the card credits that publication by name and links to their page, and the reader who wants the full account goes there rather than staying here.

Every card carries one word saying what it is: Reported when the publication did the reporting, Aggregated when we condensed somebody else's, and Opinion when it is an argument rather than a report. That word is on the card, not in a policy page, because it is only useful where the reading happens.

What condensing actually involves

An editor reads the source and decides what the story is: which fact, which number, which attribution has to survive. The rules are the same every time. Keep the fact and the number. Drop the recap and the quote that repeats the headline. Never add a fact the source did not carry. Never sharpen a claim, so a story that says a thing may happen does not become a story that says it will. Never drop the attribution, so a figure that came from a minister still says so.

That is editorial work and it is where the value of this site is, if it has any. A card that took none of it, because it is simply a publication's own opening sentences cut to length, carries no advertising here. See editorial standards for why.

Corrections

When we get something wrong we publish the correction as its own card in the same feed, saying what was wrong first and what is right second. The original card stays up at the same address with the correction attached to it, because a reader who followed a link to the mistake needs to find the fix at that link. Each publication's correction record is public on its page: how many it has issued, and how long it took.

What we do not do

Who publishes this

SHOTS is operated by BQX Innovation Ltd. Editorial responsibility for each card sits with the publication named on it. For anything about a specific story, including a correction, use contact.