A desk, not a wire

NationsDesk follows what newsrooms on three continents are reporting and writes its own account of it in English — what happened, what is known, and what is still open.

What this site does

Every item here begins as a published report by another newsroom. NationsDesk writes a fresh brief on it — a headline, a standfirst, three things to know and two short paragraphs — and names the newsroom that filed the original. Where several newsrooms report the same event, their accounts are read together and each is credited. A story runs at the length its facts justify: a thin wire report stays short, and one carrying casualties, officials, dates and consequences runs long enough to hold them.

Nothing on this site is original reporting. NationsDesk employs no correspondents and witnesses no events. It is an editing layer over other people’s journalism, and it says so on every page.

What it does not do

• It does not copy article text. Briefs are written from scratch and checked against the source for reused phrasing before they publish.
• It does not claim anyone else’s work as its own. Where a story carries the photograph the newsrooms are running with it, that newsroom is credited beneath it.
• It does not add facts. Where a report is too thin to summarize honestly, the story is not published at all.
• It does not rank by outrage. Items are ordered by time, not by what provokes a click.

Who runs it

NationsDesk is an independent publication. Editorial questions, corrections and removal requests reach a person through the contact page, and are answered.