Rand Desk uses AI tools, specifically Anthropic’s Claude, to help report the news. Below is what the AI does, what it may not do and what people check. We follow the Press Council of South Africa’s guidance on AI in the newsroom. AI material is checked by people, and its use is disclosed on every item.

How a story is made

  1. Watching the sources. Several times a day each desk reads the official sources (the Reserve Bank, Stats SA, Treasury, Parliament, government, the regulators and company announcements) and the news, looking for the biggest new South African story in its area.
  2. Reading the documents. The story is built from primary sources: the institution or company that made the news. Another publication’s report is never our only source, and we never copy from one.
  3. Drafting. The AI drafts the story in our own words and structure, with a section on what the news means for South Africa and at least one original element: a chart from the source’s own data, key figures, a timeline or an explainer.
  4. Checking. Every draft passes automated checks, then a second, separate AI review against the sources and our house style, set out in our editorial policy.
  5. Review. Stories about politics, courts, crime, health or named private individuals wait for the editor before they are published. The rest go up once they pass the checks, and the standards review re-checks them twice a day.
  6. Afterwards. Twice a day a standards review checks every story from the past 48 hours against its sources again. Corrections are made openly, on the story.

The checks

  • Numbers. Every figure must appear in a saved copy of a source, or be shown to be worked out from one.
  • Originality. The draft is compared with every source. If too many phrases match, or 12 or more words in a row match outside a quotation, it is rewritten.
  • Sources. Every story links its sources, primary source first, with dates.
  • Writing. Plain, specific and attributed: no hype, no unnamed experts, no stock phrases.
  • Conflicts. Stories that mention the editor’s own business interests are blocked (see Conflicts of interest).

What the AI may not do

  • Invent numbers, names, quotes, dates or causes.
  • Quote anyone except from a primary document, briefly and with attribution.
  • Use material from behind a paywall.
  • Use images from search engines, social media or other news sites. Our photos come from open-licence collections, government photo services and the organisations in the story, each with its credit and licence.
  • Make an AI image of a real person, place or event.
  • Appear as an author. Our stories carry the newsroom byline and the name of the editor who reviewed them.

Mistakes

If we get something wrong, we fix it and say so in the story: at the top when the error changed its meaning, otherwise at the foot. See Corrections.