Prominence of very similar news items usually changes based on which news site you're looking at. Many of those news sites are using modified news report from syndicates such as AP.

Somewhere (AP?) the news items should be listed strictly by date, in descending order. For a slightly more complete list, dated police reports from all locales could be included.

Having dated new items may also discourage undated opinion pieces.
-- 4and20, Aug 10 2022

(cue Joe Friday)

"Just the facts, ma'am."

I like it. [+]
-- whatrock, Aug 10 2022


Yea, this works. [+]
-- doctorremulac3, Aug 10 2022


Many news sites update articles without changing the dates, often changing important parts of stories after they've had the desired political effect. Some of them at least have the decency to include boilerplate on all their stories to the effect of "this story may change, so if you believe us it's your own fault"
-- Voice, Aug 14 2022


There ought to be a version history on all new stories. When you link to a story, anyone who clicks the link should get the same version of the story that you read. The only thing that should change at that web address is the addition of a header notifying the reader that there is an updated version available (with link). Also, highlighting or strikeout text as well as notes in brackets can be added to flag errors as long as the original text is still clearly visible. New versions should include links to old versions at the end.
-- scad mientist, Aug 14 2022


What [scad mientist] said.

Maybe that could be done as a third-party service: a web-crawler patrols the news sites,filters out things like advertisements and puts the html pages it finds into a Git repository (or similar).

Then it could either supply its own presentation (as [sc] indicated), or just allow public read-access to the repository so that people could use a Git-based diffing tool of their choice.
-- pertinax, Aug 14 2022


+ You would love to read the Police log from my town…”woman calls 911 to report that someone stole her umbrella. Police arrive to find it floating in her pool.”
-- xandram, Aug 14 2022


I would ask where you live but you probably don't want the news to get out.
-- Voice, Aug 14 2022



random, halfbakery