Thursday, August 20, 2026 We explain how things work, and we show our sources. Newsletter About
Launching soon · Independent explanatory journalism

We explain how things work, and we show our sources.

Not the news of the minute — the systems behind it. How government, money, technology, health and infrastructure actually work, sourced to primary documents, with a named human behind every piece.

What we publish

Explainers

The signature format. Every piece answers a real question about how something works, with a self-contained Quick Answer, key points, and every source named and linked.

Primers

The definitive reference on a subject we return to — longer, structured, the spine of the archive that the explainers hang beneath.

Reporting

Original work: documents obtained, people interviewed, data gathered rather than aggregated. Low volume, high value.

Analysis

Signed interpretation from writers with relevant expertise — clearly labelled, with a source under every factual claim.

The subjects

Systems that affect people and are badly explained everywhere else — and, deliberately, nothing else.

The weekly edition

Three or four things explained, in plain language, with the sources. One email a week. No spam, no algorithm in between.