How Herald Express Works

From raw source to published story, step by step.

Herald Express runs a structured pipeline rather than a single black-box prompt. Each stage exists to catch a specific failure mode before it reaches a reader.

1. Source ingestion

RSS feeds, regional and non-conventional Indian sources, and manually submitted links/tips are pulled in on a schedule, then deduplicated against recently processed stories to avoid repeat coverage.

2. AI research and rewrite

An AI writer drafts an original article from the source material – not a copy, a rewrite – using a fallback chain across multiple AI providers so a single provider outage does not stop publishing.

3. Verification and evidence framing

Drafts are required to separate reported fact from claim, attribute sources, and flag genuine uncertainty rather than presenting speculation as settled.

4. Category assignment

The finished article’s actual text – not just the source feed’s metadata – is scored against keyword rules for each section (India, World, Politics, Business, Economy, Technology, Environment, Health, Science, Sports, Opinion) before publish.

5. Editorial direction

A standing set of editorial-direction statements (tone, priorities, scrutiny targets, banned/preferred framing) is injected into every generation prompt, and can be updated continuously by Herald Express editors.

6. Quality gates

Articles that look like AI refusals, are too short, contain unresolved formatting artifacts, or land in a category their own text does not support are rejected from the homepage and, where possible, from publishing at all.

7. Image generation

A real, article-specific image is attempted first. If generation is unavailable, the article publishes as a clean, text-only card instead – Herald Express does not use placeholder or fallback graphics – and a bounded retry is queued so a real image can still be attached once conditions allow.

8. Publishing

Approved articles publish automatically. Breaking items can be flagged for 24-hour homepage prominence.

9. Corrections

Readers can flag errors at any time through our corrections page; verified errors are corrected with a visible note.

10. The editorial desk

A small number of articles instead originate from an internal, authenticated editorial workflow: an authorised Herald Express editor supplies sources, notes, and direction; the same AI-assisted research and drafting, editorial validation, duplicate detection, and image policy described above still apply; and the editor reviews and explicitly approves the draft before it publishes. These articles are attributed to Mr. Editor, Editor in Chief, Herald Express – see our AI Transparency page for full detail.