About Beyond the Headlines
Beyond the Headlines (BTH) is an editorial product built around a simple idea: help people understand what happened, decide what matters to them, and then disconnect — rather than keep scrolling. This page explains what BTH actually is and how the product works.
Understand. Decide. Disconnect.
That line is BTH's guiding framing, not a slogan added afterwards. BTH is built so that a reader can get a clear, honest understanding of a story quickly, form their own view of what it means for them, and then step away — "clearer thinking without the endless noise", as BTH's own tagline puts it — instead of being pulled into an endless feed.
How a briefing works
1. 60-second briefing
Every story starts as a tightly written 60-second summary — enough to understand what happened and why it matters, without needing to read a long article first.
2. Deeper material, on request
If you want more, you can unlock the fuller briefing with your email address: Key Facts, "Article at a Glance", the full article text, and the sources it draws on. This deeper material is there for anyone who wants to check BTH's reasoning and evidence for themselves, not just take a summary on trust.
3. "You Are In Charge" simulator (where available)
Some briefings include an interactive simulator. It puts you in a role connected to the story and asks you to make decisions inside a simplified model of the situation, so you can explore trade-offs rather than just read about them. It is an educational tool for exploring a topic, not a prediction engine — see BTH's Terms for how it's meant to be used.
4. Switch off
When you're done, that's the point — BTH doesn't try to keep you reading past what you came for.
Reporting, not telling you what to think
BTH's job is to explain a story clearly and show the evidence behind it — not to tell you what conclusion to reach. Where a topic is genuinely contested, BTH aims to set out the different positions and the facts relevant to them, and leave the judgement to you.
Editorial independence
Editorial decisions about what to cover and how to explain it are made by BTH's own editorial process. BTH is not a government body, a political party, a campaign group, or a public authority, and nothing on this site should be read as an official statement from one.
Current product areas
- 60 Seconds — the daily briefing format described above.
- Investigations — a library of BTH's longer-running or in-depth stories.
- You Are In Charge — the interactive simulator described above, available on selected briefings.
BTH also uses some internal production tools — for example, a Podcast Studio for drafting narration scripts and an Image Studio for generating illustrative artwork — to help produce BTH's own content. These are internal editorial/production tools, not services offered to readers, and any AI-assisted output they produce is reviewed by BTH before publication.
What BTH doesn't claim
BTH doesn't publish figures about its audience size, doesn't claim any press accreditation, and doesn't claim partnerships with other organisations on this page. If any of that becomes true and relevant, it will be stated accurately here rather than implied.