You shouldn’t need a translator to read the news.

You should be able to read the news without doing homework first. If we use an acronym you have never seen, mention a procedure nobody explained or throw a percentage at you without saying what moved, that is our problem to fix.

I want Hardcore News to respect your time and your intelligence. You can understand a difficult subject. The writer has to do enough work to make it understandable.

A story needs a reason to exist beyond somebody putting out a statement. What changed? Who has to live with the decision?

What are we being asked to believe, and what evidence supports it?

Make the number mean something

A 0.6% price increase can disappear into a sentence. An extra $6 on a $1,000 budget is harder to miss. Put the number beside its consequence, label the example and keep the story moving.

The same goes for institutions and procedures. Explain a court order through what it allows or stops. Explain a budget through the money coming in, the bills going out and the choices left afterward.

People should learn because the explanation belongs in the story.

Source links let you check the work. They cannot do the writing for us. You should understand the article even if you never open the notes, and you should be able to inspect the evidence if you do.

Skepticism has to cost us something

It is easy to question a claim from someone you dislike. The test is whether you ask the same questions when the claim makes your own side look good.

Being skeptical of competing arguments does not mean splitting the difference. If one survives the evidence and another falls apart, say so. Give a serious objection a fair hearing without pretending every objection is equally strong.

Keep the distinction between what happened and what someone says it proves. An allegation needs attribution. A promise needs results before we call it a success.

When the evidence changes, the conclusion may need to change with it.

The headline owes you an answer

A good headline gives you a reason to click. The article has to deliver. Anger, curiosity and humor can earn attention, but none excuses an invented catastrophe or a paragraph that has nothing to say.

There is room for profanity here. Sometimes a blunt word earns its place. Repeating it until every headline sounds pissed off would be another formula, and a swear word cannot turn a weak observation into a strong one.

I want the voice to hold up across politics, money, health, sports and celebrity coverage. Each story should find its own shape. A person describing an illness deserves care.

A proposed law needs examination. A championship can be worth watching without turning the preview into a prophecy.

Put a name on the opinion

My arguments belong in The English Argument, with my name attached. Readers should be able to recognize my judgment and distinguish it from the factual record and other people’s positions.

That does not require lifeless reporting. It requires being honest about what each sentence is doing. Show the evidence for a claim.

Attribute an accusation. Own the opinion.

Hold me to it

Some articles will fall short. Fix the writing when it is clumsy. Correct the facts when they are wrong, and explain the change.

Asking you to trust the ambition is not enough.

I want people who usually avoid the news to find something worth reading here. You should leave understanding more than when you arrived, with enough evidence to disagree with me if that is where it takes you.