Article-level analysis of how Florida politics gets covered.
Not whether a story is true. Who got quoted, how far down the opposing
view appears, which claims trace back to a document, and what one outlet
left out that the rest of the coverage carried.
The one rule that matters
The scorer never sees who wrote the article. Outlet name, masthead
references, byline, author bio, source URL and boilerplate are stripped
before a single word reaches the model. A score describes the text in front
of it, not the reputation attached to it.
Published output is counts the code computed and verbatim quotes with links
back to the original. Nothing is republished here, and no summary is written
on a publication’s behalf.
Nothing publishes until these pass
status: not run
- Wire anchor. Copy from the News Service of Florida is
republished across the state and functions as the zero point. If it
doesn’t score near-neutral, the engine is wrong, not the wire.
- Known-lean separation. Outlets should separate in the
directions predicted in advance, with symmetric magnitude. Asymmetric
magnitude means lean inherited from the model rather than found in the
coverage.
- Valence swap. Flip party names and actor identities so
the structure is identical and the direction reverses. A structural engine
returns the same score.
- Test–retest. Every article scored five times, with
the variance published rather than hidden.
Results of all four will be published before any coverage analysis is,
including the ones that come back badly. The predictions are written down
first so they can’t be adjusted to fit what comes out.
What this will not do
- Fact-check claims. This measures how a story was reported, not whether it was right.
- Score opinion columns or editorials.
- Republish anyone’s work. Scores link out.
- Produce a single composite number before the tests above pass.
- Let a human approve a score before it publishes.
Disclosure. Second Source is written by the owner of Holmes Drafting
Services, a permitting and drafting firm. The Florida Building Code, the
Florida Building Commission, DBPR, and state preemption of local land-use
authority are recused subjects and will not be covered here. The full recusal
list publishes with the engine.