About Wirebeat

Our Mission

Wirebeat exists to empower people to be more informed, incentivise news that is transparent and just, and amplify the voices of experts. Our aim is not to report the news, but to change the incentives around content creation by demanding the highest level of quality and reliability.

Misinformation, clickbait, and speed over depth have eroded the quality of news and weakened its role in holding the powerful accountable. Wirebeat will always champion free speech but recognises the responsibility to label, contextualise, and analyse content where possible to diminish the harm of inaccurate or misleading publications.

Guiding Principles

This platform applies analytics against a set of principles designed to improve media accountability:

• Promote transparency: distinguish between “freedom of speech” and “freedom of consequence”.
• Reduce sensationalism: highlight when sources have a record of inaccuracy or unjustified harm.
• Disincentivise clickbait: separate articles that aim to inform from those designed for ad revenue.
• Expose bias: flag content that is politically extreme, opinion-heavy, or missing critical facts.
• Connect perspectives: show comparable opposing views, nuance, and omissions.
• Identify manipulation: highlight false equivalence or deliberate outrage-for-profit tactics.

Using Data Science

We leverage data science to identify credibility, bias, and agendas by:

• Tracking historic misinformation or retracted stories.
• Uncovering political, financial, or organisational incentives behind publications.
• Assessing author credentials and how information was sourced.
• Providing an audit trail to maintain transparency in evidence.

Raising Awareness

Wirebeat also aims to improve media literacy by encouraging readers to:

• Check sources and their potential interests.
• Broaden perspectives to verify facts across diverse outlets.
• Consider whether expert voices are represented.
• Separate facts from personal opinion, adjusting views as evidence changes.
• Avoid narrow loyalty to a single publisher or viewpoint.
• Use fact-checking sites such as factcheck.org or AllSides to cross-check information.

Sustainability

We will not compromise when it comes to doing the right thing. Wirebeat is committed to making a positive environmental impact as well as a social one. We are proud to be carbon negative, offsetting our footprint by planting trees through ecologi.com/wirebeat. This extends to covering the carbon footprints of our staff as well.

Our Commitment

Wirebeat’s commitment is simple: to empower readers with clarity, context, and credibility while helping shift media incentives towards transparency and accountability.