Editorial approach

We would rather have one specific absurdity than five paragraphs announcing that the world is absurd.

Satire has a target

New OLDZERO satire focuses on institutions, incentives, corporate language, technology and familiar habits. An individual’s death, illness or vulnerability is not a ready-made punchline. The automatic edition skips tragedy-focused source stories.

Fact and invention

Satire is labelled. Fictional dialogue and exaggerated institutional behaviour should be recognisable as inventions. A source link provides context; it is not evidence that an invented scene happened. We do not present a plausible fabricated quote, crime or admission by a real person as reporting.

How the edition is produced

AI assists drafting and headline development. The current workflow requests several headline candidates, a compact article and a distinct introductory line. Automated checks look for incomplete output, old template markers, repeated sentences and similarity to recent premises. Unsuitable sources can be skipped. All automatically generated pieces remain drafts until editorial approval; passing a technical check alone does not publish them. The daily generation limit includes drafts.

These checks are limited. They cannot guarantee originality, factual accuracy or humour, and they are not a substitute for independent verification. We do not imply that an AI model conducted interviews, browsed a source or checked a claim when it did not.

The archive

Older articles may use a summary-and-commentary structure. Their original URLs remain available. A fresh design does not turn historical text into a newly checked or newly published article.

For an error or concern, use the corrections page.