How We Compare

The problem with reading one newspaper

Any single account of an event is a set of choices: what to lead on, whom to call, what to leave out because the piece was already long. Those choices are invisible from inside the piece. They only become visible when you set the piece beside somebody else's.

Most readers never do that, because it is work, and because no outlet has any incentive to make it easy.

What we do instead

Every reported story of substance in They Buried carries a How Others Covered This box at its foot. It lists the other outlets that covered the same events on the same day, their headline, the angle they took, what they had that we did not, and what they left out.

We write the "had that we did not" column first, and we write it before we write our own story's conclusion.

The rules we work to

• We list the outlets that beat us. If somebody had a source we could not get, that is the first line of the box.
• We do not characterise a rival's motive. We describe what is in their piece. We do not tell you why we think it is in their piece.
• We link out. Always, including to outlets that dislike us, and including where the link will cost us a reader.
• We do not use the box to attack. A comparison box that only ever finds the other side wanting is not a comparison, it is a house ad.
• We include ourselves in the list, in the same format, with our own omissions written by the standards editor rather than by the story's reporter.

The uncomfortable part

The last rule is the one that took an argument to establish. The reporter who wrote a story is the worst person to say what it left out, because they know exactly why each thing was cut and every reason is a good one.

So the "left out" line about one of our stories is written by Verity Ashcombe-Doyle, who did not write the story, cannot be overruled by the desk that did, and reports to the readers.

The reporters hate this. It is the single most-complained-about internal rule at this newspaper and it has been in force since 2021.

What happens when their version is better

We say so, in the box, in the first line, and then we go and get what they had.

Nine stories in this archive exist because a comparison box made it obvious that another outlet had something we did not. Two of those nine are among the best things we have published.