NEWSDESK STUDIO · IN DEVELOPMENT
Collects news from the outlets you choose, groups the reporting of the same event into one story, works out how well that story is actually sourced, and gives you a place to read it, take notes on it, and walk away with a running order.
It is a desktop application, not a website and not a feed reader with a new skin. It runs on your own machine, keeps its database on your own disk, and works without an account. Everything it knows comes from the feeds you point it at.
The difference between this and a reader is the grouping and the status. Twelve outlets running the same announcement is one story here, with twelve source tabs on it and a status that reflects who actually reported it first. You are never counting outlets by hand at eleven at night.
It was built for a gaming news show, and it assumes that working day: sit down, see what happened, read enough to know what is solid, write a line of your own on each item, put them in order, and export that order as a document you can read off while recording. A newsletter, a podcast or a weekly roundup is the same shape of work.
The core idea
Every story carries one of six statuses, derived from who published it and how many outlets have it — both facts you already own — rather than from a guess about how official an article sounds.
Every source you add is given a tier from 1 to 4: the company itself, an established outlet, a smaller or specialist site, an aggregator or community. The tier is yours to set and is never inferred, which is what keeps status honest.
It is asked what kind of article this is — announcement, reporting, rumor, opinion, review, guide, deal. It is never asked whether something is official, because that mixes a fact you own with a judgment about the text.
If a model cannot point at real words in the article to support its label, the label is discarded and the status rests on tier and corroboration alone.
One outlet repeating a company press line is still one outlet. The thresholds are configurable; the principle is that the application exists not to overstate confidence.
Mark a rumor confirmed or denied when it settles, and whichever source carried it first gets the credit or the ding. After a few weeks it becomes a list, from your own feeds, of which outlets are right when they run a leak.
Turn the model off and grouping falls back to title and word overlap, classification to rules and a small local classifier. The status rules are untouched, because they never depended on a model.
The workspace
Every grouped story, colored by status, with the headline, how many sources carry it and how long ago it broke. Filters for tracked terms, the last 24 hours, news only, has video, and saved. Sort by top, newest or most sources.
One tab per outlet carrying the story, ordered with the most authoritative first. Article text pulled out of the page without navigation, adverts or newsletter boxes — or the page as published, if you prefer. Video plays in place with its own controls.
A rich-text note per story, saved as you type, plus a single show prep pad for anything not tied to one item. Quote Story drops a proper credited link to whatever you are reading straight into the note.
Queue the stories you want, in the order you want them, and export the lot as one Markdown file. Your note for each item, sources listed for anything you did not write on, videos credited to where you found them, and the show prep pad at the end.
Worth knowing
The story database, source list, settings and notes live in your own user folder. Exports go to Documents, where you would actually look for them. Nothing is written into the install folder, so updates and reinstalls are clean.
A local model through Ollama, a cloud API key of your own, an existing Claude subscription, or nothing at all. The setup guide measures what your machine can actually run and recommends from the result rather than from a table of specs.
Interface and reader text sizes, panel widths, row density, alternative status palettes, and status symbols as well as colors — because it is read for long stretches and streamed on camera, where defaults built for a desk at arm's length do not hold up.
Windows now; macOS and Linux planned, in that order.
In development — not yet released
NewsDesk Studio is documented to version 0.1 and is not finished. There is no download yet and no release date stated here, because neither would be honest.
This page describes what the application does today rather than what it is intended to do eventually.
Black Sheep Systems