How to read the news with Huduku

Read across outlets

Most news reaches you through one outlet. Before you believe or share a story, see who else reported it, and how.

A story page puts every outlet’s headline side by side, with a link to each one’s own report. Checking other sources this way is what professional fact-checkers do first.

Outlets and owners

Several outlets can belong to one company. Times of India and The Economic Times are both published by Bennett, Coleman & Co. A story carried by both is one company’s coverage, not two confirmations.

So Huduku counts owners as well as outlets: “9 outlets · 7 owners”. Top stories need three different owners (two in Kannada). Each outlet’s page says who publishes it, with sources.

How each outlet put it

The same event can be headlined many ways. On a story page, press Compare coverage: the words only one outlet used are highlighted, as with a marker pen, and a line above the headlines lists the words most outlets used.

Highlighted words show what that outlet chose to stress: the crowd, the police, the politics. They are not wrong in themselves. Read them against each other.

Nearly the same words

When headlines from different outlets are nearly word for word the same, they usually come from a news agency’s copy (PTI, ANI, IANS, Reuters), which outlets publish with light edits.

Several outlets running one agency report is still one report. Huduku marks these “≈ same wording”.

First seen by Huduku

Huduku reads each outlet’s feed about once an hour and notes when each headline appeared. The earliest is “first seen by Huduku”.

That is not proof of who broke the story. Feeds run late, some by hours, and an outlet may have reported it first on TV or social media.

Headlines change

Publishers rewrite headlines after they publish: to correct them, to update them, or to sharpen them.

When a headline changes on the same link, Huduku keeps the earlier wording. The story page marks the headline “changed”, and Compare coverage (Details, if only one outlet carried it) shows the earlier wording with when Huduku saw the change. It reads each feed about once an hour, so the change was made at that time or before. A change isn’t a mistake in itself; the earlier wording tells you what readers first saw.

Not found isn’t not reported

A search lists the outlets where Huduku found no matching headline. The outlet may have used other words, or its feed may not carry every story.

Outlets whose feeds aren’t working are listed apart, because Huduku can’t speak for them.

Where in Karnataka

A search counts its headlines by region: Bengaluru, Old Mysore, Coastal Karnataka, Malnad and North Karnataka. Under North Karnataka it shows the two official regions: Kalyana Karnataka (Bidar, Kalaburagi, Yadgir, Raichur, Koppal, Ballari, Vijayanagara) and Kittur Karnataka (Belagavi, Dharwad, Vijayapura, Bagalkote, Gadag, Haveri). A place is known when the link files the story under a district or city, or the headline names one.

Uttara Kannada counts as Coastal, as people usually say, though officially it is in Kittur Karnataka. Davanagere and Chitradurga are in no region: they count under Karnataka only. Where an outlet is based isn’t counted for each of its headlines; it is on the outlet’s page.

Few headlines have a known place, and outlets file much state news under Bengaluru, so the counts lean that way. A small count for a region is a question to ask, not a finding.

English and Kannada papers

English and Kannada papers often cover different stories, or the same story differently. When every word of a search is a place or topic on Huduku’s list, the search also runs on the other language’s headlines and shows both counts side by side.

The list holds places, institutions and common topics, not people, and nothing is translated by machine. A story the list can’t name won’t show in the other language. “Not found” there means Huduku didn’t find it, not that those papers ignored it.

News, opinion, fact checks, official

A news report tells what happened. An opinion piece argues a view. A fact check tests a claim. An official notice is the source itself.

Huduku keeps opinion and fact checks in sections of their own, and labels videos, so a column doesn’t read as a report and a fact check doesn’t read as the claim it checks.

Opinion, Editorial and Fact check labels sit beside a headline, because they change how it should be read. The other labels (Analysis, Explainer, Review, Interview, Official) show when details are open. Every label is the publisher’s own, read from its headline, its feed (the feed’s name, or the category it gives the piece) or the desk in its link. Point at a label, or open the story’s details, to see which. A column is labelled Opinion, and its note says the publisher calls it a column. “Fact check” and “Official” also mark everything from fact-checking sites and official publishers. Huduku never labels a piece from its wording, so a headline without a label can still be opinion: no label means the publisher didn’t mark it.

Trace it to the source

Most news starts from a document: a judgment, a notice, a speech, a set of figures. Headlines compress it, and sometimes go beyond it.

When a story matters to you, find the original. Story pages list where such documents are published.

Huduku’s own choices

Huduku chose its outlets by hand, shows only headlines, and gives no ratings. Each outlet’s page lists checkable facts with their sources.

Top stories rank by how many owners carried a story, the same for everyone. Huduku doesn’t track you: anything personal stays in your browser. It sees only outlets that publish feeds, so it can miss stories.

Your notebook

Your notebook is kept in this browser, on this device. Nothing you write in it is sent to Huduku. Save a copy now and then: a browser can clear what a site has stored, and a copy is how you move a notebook to another device.

If one notebook is open in two tabs and you write in both, the last save wins: the tab that saves last replaces what the other wrote. Write in one tab at a time.