Editorial and Sourcing Standards

This Editorial and Sourcing Standards policy (the "Standards") describes HNH's practices for identifying, summarizing, and commenting on Third-Party Source Content, and for producing HNH Original Content. These Standards apply to HNH staff and contractors, and to any automated or AI-assisted tools used in HNH's content pipeline. They implement Sections 4 through 6 of the HNH Terms of Use.

1. Purpose and Legal Context

HNH's short summaries and original commentary are intended to support purposes associated with news reporting, criticism, and comment. Fair use under U.S. copyright law is a fact-specific, four-factor analysis, considering the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the original work, the amount and substantiality of the portion used, and the effect on the market for the original. There is no fixed safe number of words or percentage of an original work that is automatically permissible under any of these factors.

Because no such bright-line safe harbor exists, HNH's operational practice is deliberately more conservative than the outer boundary of what a fair-use analysis might ultimately permit in any individual case. These Standards describe that operational practice. They are an internal editorial and operating policy, not a legal opinion, and do not by themselves guarantee that any specific use qualifies as fair use.

2. Core Principles

• Summarize, do not reproduce. HNH Summaries restate the factual substance of Third-Party Source Content in HNH's own independent language and sentence structure. They do not track the original's wording, organization, or narrative choices.
• Keep summaries concise. HNH Summaries should be brief relative to the source article, typically a small number of sentences conveying the core facts, regardless of how long the original article is. This brevity is a self-imposed editorial standard intended to support a fair-use analysis, not a claimed legal percentage safe harbor.
• Limit direct quotation. Direct quotations from Third-Party Source Content should be used sparingly and only when the exact language materially matters, such as an official's statement. Quotations must always be set off with quotation marks and attributed to the original speaker and the original publication.
• Attribute clearly. Every HNH Summary identifies, when reasonably available, the original outlet and the original author or byline, consistent with Sections 4 and 5 of the Terms of Use.
• Link directly. Every HNH Summary links to the original source so readers can access the complete article.
• Add meaningful commentary. Every HNH Summary is paired with an HNH Insight or comparable original analysis that provides independent editorial value, such as context, implications, comparisons to other programs, or trend analysis, that does not appear in the original article. A summary published without accompanying original analysis does not meet these Standards.
• Preserve original attribution. HNH does not strip, obscure, or alter bylines, outlet names, or publication dates when referencing Third-Party Source Content.

3. Specific Operating Rules

• Headlines: HNH may reference an original headline for identification purposes but should generally write its own headline for an HNH Summary rather than presenting the original headline as HNH's own original work.
• Images: use only independently sourced or properly licensed images. Do not copy an image directly from the original article absent a specific license or a separate fair-use analysis for that image, since images are analyzed independently from text under Section 6.
• Paywalled or access-restricted sources: HNH will not bypass a publisher's paywall, subscription wall, or other technical access restriction to obtain source material. Summaries of paywalled content are based only on the portion of the article reasonably accessible to HNH, such as a public preview, abstract, or press release, unless HNH has a separate license or agreement with the publisher.
• Automated or AI-assisted summarization: any AI tool used to draft an HNH Summary or HNH Insight must be instructed to restate facts independently, and must not be prompted or permitted to closely paraphrase the source's sentence structure or reproduce its distinctive phrases. AI-assisted output remains subject to the review process in Section 5.
• Source verification: HNH's automated source-verification process, which confirms the canonical article URL and byline author, exists to support sourcing accuracy. It is not a license to retrieve or reproduce content beyond what is reasonably necessary to confirm sourcing details.

4. Prohibited Practices

• Reproducing one or more complete paragraphs of Third-Party Source Content;
• Reproducing the original article's distinctive structure, sequence of points, or turns of phrase, even where individual words have been changed;
• Publishing a summary so comprehensive that a reader would have no practical reason to visit the original source;
• Omitting attribution to the original outlet or author when that information is reasonably available;
• Omitting a direct link to the original source;
• Publishing an HNH Summary without an accompanying HNH Insight or comparable original commentary; and
• Using bulk scraping or automated retrieval to obtain full-text archives of a publisher's content beyond what is reasonably necessary to prepare an individual summary.

5. Review and Quality Control

Articles flagged by HNH's automated source-verification process, including the daily ingestion report, are reviewed by an editorial reviewer before or shortly after publication. HNH will also periodically sample published HNH Summaries against their original sources to confirm that no summary has drifted into close paraphrasing or excessive quotation over time, and will revise or correct any that have. Identified issues are corrected consistent with Section 21 of the Terms of Use (Editorial Corrections and Updates).

6. Images and Non-Text Content

Images accompanying HNH Summaries and HNH Insights must be independently sourced or properly licensed, such as through a stock image library, HNH-created graphics, or separately licensed photography. HNH does not use a publisher's own photography or graphics without a separate permission or license, even where the accompanying text summary otherwise complies with these Standards.

7. Application to Sponsored and Original Content

These Standards apply to HNH Summaries and HNH Insights regardless of whether the underlying subject matter relates to an HNH sponsor or advertiser. Sponsorship does not change the sourcing and attribution obligations described in these Standards, consistent with the editorial-independence principles in Section 18.5 of the Terms of Use.

8. Training and Accountability

HNH staff and contractors involved in content production, and any vendor providing AI-assisted drafting or verification tools, are provided these Standards and are expected to apply them. HNH will periodically review its content-automation pipeline, including prompts, models, and vendors, against these Standards as those components change.

9. Relationship to the Terms of Use

These Standards implement, and should be read together with, Sections 4 through 6 of the HNH Terms of Use. In the event of a conflict, the Terms of Use control as to user rights and obligations, and these Standards control as to HNH's internal editorial practice.

10. Questions and Concerns

A publisher, author, or other party who believes an HNH Summary or HNH Insight does not comply with these Standards may contact legal@hnhintelligence.com. HNH will review the specific item against the original source and revise or remove it as appropriate, consistent with Section 29 of the Terms of Use (Copyright and Intellectual-Property Complaints).