Debrief No verdicts. Just the mechanics.

What is this article actually telling you?

Paste any news link. See what's established fact, what's framing, and what's missing, before you decide what to think.

Not a fact-checker. No verdicts.

Three free debriefs, no account needed.

Council approves measureMarked up

The council approved the measure by nine votes to four on Tuesday. The decision marks a stunning defeat for opponents, who had campaigned against it since March.

Critics say the process was rushed. The consultation period ran for six weeks. how long is standard? who funded the campaign?

Established Framing Missing

And the readout underneath it:

  1. Established, claimed, disputed
  2. The frame
  3. Who benefits
  4. What's missing
  5. The strongest case against
  6. What would change it

Method: the six sections are adapted from Psychology of Intelligence Analysis and the structured analytic techniques published openly by the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence. Independent project, no affiliation.

How it works

A link. Any article: wire copy, op-ed, a thread, the thing your uncle sent.

or

The raw text. When the link sits behind a paywall or a login, paste the article itself. It works the same.

That is the whole input. No account, no setup, nothing to configure.

What comes back

A structured analytical debrief you can actually finish. You come away knowing what the piece wanted you to conclude, and how much of that its own evidence carries.

1

Established, claimed, disputed

Fact

Every factual claim sorted, with what it rests on. A single anonymous source looks different from three wires.

2

What's missing

Missing

Precedent, constraint, the boring structural context that would make the event legible.

3

The frame

Framing

What the piece wants you to conclude, and which of that the facts carry. Headline construction, quote selection, what got left out.

4

The strongest case against

Counter

Including against the reading you just formed. Absent data cuts both ways.

5

Who benefits

Interest

From the event, and separately from the story about the event. Including the people quoted as neutral.

6

What would change it

Test

The specific thing you could learn tomorrow that flips the assessment.

Turnout was the highest in a generation, according to whose count?

Marked, never scored. The blue is the piece telling you how to feel. The dashed outline is a question the piece never answers, and it stays an outline: absence has no size.

Objections

“Isn't this anti-journalism?”

No. Good journalism explains how the world works, and there's plenty of it. This is a way to read the other kind, and to notice which one you're holding.

“Does it tell me what's true?”

No. It tells you what's established, what's merely claimed, where the seams are, and what evidence would settle it. Verdicts are how you got here.

“So it's an AI summarizer.”

A summary preserves the frame; it just makes it shorter. This one takes the frame apart and shows it to you separately from the facts.

“Will this make me more cynical?”

The opposite is the design goal. Cynicism is what you get when everything is equally suspect. Sorting claims by how well they're actually held up is the cure.

Debrief Pro

Everything above is the free read, and it is deliberately the short answer. When the story actually matters to you, there is a longer one.

Fact tiering

Every claim marked confirmed, likely, claimed but unverified, or disputed. Sorted by what actually holds it up, not paraphrased from the article.

Framing decomposition

The specific mechanics. What is emphasised, what is buried, who is given a voice, who is not, and how the sequence steers you toward a conclusion.

Competing interpretations, tested

At least three readings of the same facts, including the boring one. The weak readings stay in, with the reason they are weak.

Who benefits, twice

Who gains from the event, and separately who gains from this particular telling of it. Named parties, not implication.

Missing context

The precedent, the scale, or the constraint a reader needs and the piece does not supply.

Red team pass

The strongest available case that the mainstream reading is wrong, including against the reading this brief just gave you.

What would change this

Concrete, checkable things to watch for, with the assessment each one would flip. Not “developing story”.

Delivered as a designed brief

The same artifact you can hand to someone else, in a longer format.

Cross-reading against independent sources not built yet

The event checked against other outlets covering it, not only the link you pasted. This is the hard part and it is not finished, so it is marked here the way this tool marks anything else that is asserted rather than established. When it ships, the dashes come off.

What it still refuses to do: no verdict, no score, no bias rating. That rule is not a limit of the free tier, it is the product. A debrief that hands down a verdict is just a fact-checker with better typography.

The world mostly works. That part doesn't make the news.

Three free debriefs, no account needed.