Source Inclusion Policy

OpenBrief · published by Mnemosyne Limited
Version 1.0 · Published 1 August 2026

1. Purpose

OpenBrief indexes New Zealand’s political discourse. To do that credibly, decisions about which sources enter the index must be made against published criteria rather than case-by-case judgement.

This policy sets out those criteria. It applies to every source in the OpenBrief corpus, including sources OpenBrief has a commercial or sponsorship relationship with.

Inclusion is not endorsement. A source appearing in OpenBrief carries no implication that we regard it as accurate, fair, or worth reading. It means the source publishes New Zealand political content that meets the threshold criteria below, and that measuring discourse without it would make our picture less complete.

Exclusion is not a verdict. A source may fail these criteria for entirely mundane reasons — no feed, too new, no named editor — and be an excellent publication.

2. Scope and corpus assignment

Every source is assigned to exactly one corpus:

Assignment is based on what a source predominantly publishes, not how it describes itself. An outlet that calls its interviews “original reporting” is assigned to Commentary if interviews are what it predominantly produces.

Sources publishing across formats may appear in more than one corpus where the outputs are genuinely distinct (for example, a written masthead and a separately produced podcast).

3. Inclusion criteria

A source is included if it meets all of the following.

3.1 Original output. The source produces its own material. Pure aggregators, syndication mirrors, and republishers of others’ work are excluded, because indexing them double-counts discourse that is already captured at origin.

3.2 Named editorial responsibility. At least one identifiable person is publicly accountable for what the source publishes. A masthead, editor, host, or named proprietor satisfies this. Wholly anonymous publications do not.

3.3 A corrections mechanism. The source has a stated means by which errors can be raised and corrected. A published corrections policy is preferred; a monitored contact address for editorial complaints is sufficient.

3.4 Sustained cadence. The source has published New Zealand political content at a rate of at least two items per month over a continuous three-month period. This filters dormant and one-off publications, not small ones.

3.5 Accessible, machine-readable output. Content is available via RSS, a public API, structured transcripts, or another stable feed we can lawfully ingest.

3.6 Lawful ingestion. Content can be indexed consistently with New Zealand copyright law under our snippet-and-link approach, and consistently with the source’s own terms where those terms are not being used to prevent measurement of publicly broadcast political speech.

3.7 New Zealand political relevance. The source’s output bears on New Zealand politics, policy, or public affairs. International sources qualify only in respect of their New Zealand coverage.

4. What is not a criterion

The following are never grounds for including or excluding a source:

• Political lean, editorial stance, or ideological position
• Whether OpenBrief, its operator, or its customers agree with the source
• Tone, aggression, partisanship, or advocacy framing
• Audience size, revenue, or professional standing
• Whether the source is staffed by paid journalists or volunteers
• Whether the source is funded by, aligned with, or sympathetic to a political party, union, industry body, church, or campaign group

The last point is deliberate. Affiliation is disclosed, not disqualifying. A union-funded outlet and an industry-funded outlet both belong in an index of discourse, and both should carry a funding note. Removing them would not make the picture neutral; it would make it incomplete.

5. Disqualifying conduct

A source is refused or removed, irrespective of section 3, where it:

5.1 Conceals or misrepresents its ownership, funding, or country of origin.

5.2 Presents paid placement, sponsored content, or party material as independent editorial without disclosure.

5.3 Fabricates sourcing — invented quotes, fictitious interviewees, or reporting attributed to people or documents that do not exist.

5.4 Operates as an undisclosed instrument of a political party, campaign, foreign state, or commercial interest, as distinct from an outlet that discloses its alignment.

5.5 Publishes material that is unlawful to reproduce or index in New Zealand, including breaches of name suppression or court orders.

5.6 Impersonates another outlet or masquerades as local news while being generated elsewhere without editorial presence in New Zealand.

Disqualification under 5.1–5.4 requires evidence, is recorded with reasons, and is appealable under section 9.

6. Active discovery

OpenBrief does not build its source list by waiting for applications.

Sources vary widely in how easily they can be found and ingested. Well-resourced outlets tend to have clean feeds, structured metadata, and staff who approach us. Smaller, volunteer, community, te reo Māori, Pacific, regional, and independent publications frequently have none of those things. An index assembled purely from what is easy to ingest, or from who thinks to ask, will systematically over-represent the well-resourced — and that skew will not be visible in the output.

We therefore commit to:

• Reviewing the source register at least twice yearly against an external survey of active New Zealand political publishers
• Recording, for any identified source not included, which criterion it fails
• Treating a concentration of exclusions under 3.5 (machine-readable output) as an engineering problem for us to solve, not a reason to leave a source out
• Publishing the count of identified-but-excluded sources alongside the register

7. Classification and disclosure

Every included source carries a public profile recording:

• Corpus and date of inclusion
• Editorial lean, assigned descriptively under our published lean methodology
• Ownership and funding, as disclosed by the source or on the public record
• Affiliations to parties, unions, industry bodies, or campaign organisations
• Any commercial or sponsorship relationship with OpenBrief or Mnemosyne Limited

Lean tags describe observed editorial positioning. They are not quality judgements, and a source may request review of its tag under section 9.

Commercial relationships change nothing about how a source is treated. Where OpenBrief sponsors, is sponsored by, sells to, or is otherwise commercially engaged with a source, that relationship is disclosed on the source’s profile and the source is subject to the same criteria, weighting, and review as every other. We will not decline a source because we compete with it, and we will not include one because we are paid by it.

8. Weighting

Sources are weighted by their actual publication volume. A source publishing four items a month contributes four items a month to topic volumes, heatmaps, and trend analysis.

We do not adjust weightings to balance the distribution of lean across the corpus. If New Zealand political discourse is unevenly distributed across the spectrum, our output should show that. Correcting the distribution by hand would replace a measurement with an opinion.

Where a source’s inclusion is recent enough that its volume history is partial, its profile records the ingestion start date so that trend lines are not misread.

9. Process, review, and appeal

Applying. Any source may apply for inclusion by contacting OpenBrief at [email protected]. Applications are assessed against sections 3 and 5 and answered in writing, with reasons, within 20 working days.

Proposing others. Anyone may propose a source they do not operate, including a source they disagree with.

Ongoing review. The full register is reviewed twice yearly. Sources that fall below the cadence threshold for six months are marked dormant rather than removed, and reinstated automatically on resumption.

Appeals. A source may dispute its lean tag, corpus assignment, funding note, or exclusion. Appeals are answered in writing with reasons. Where an appeal succeeds, the change and its date are recorded in the public changelog.

A source cannot appeal its way to a different weighting. Volume is measured, not negotiated.

10. Transparency commitments

We publish:

• The source register — every included source, with its classification
• The changelog — every addition, removal, reclassification, and successful appeal, with dates
• The lean methodology — how lean tags are assigned and reviewed
• The exclusion count — how many identified sources are not included, and under which criteria

11. Amendment

This policy is versioned. Changes are published with a dated note describing what changed and why. Prior versions remain accessible.

OpenBrief accepts no political party funding and no donor funding conditional on editorial or inclusion outcomes. Any change to that position would be published here before taking effect.