Every major story gets the same treatment. The verified record first. Then how right-leaning and left-leaning outlets covered it differently. Then what both sides got wrong or left out. No editorial board. No advertisers. No political affiliations.
What This Is
The Straight Record is a bias-analysis news publication. It does not tell you what to think. It shows you how partisan media frames the same events differently and lets you decide what matters.
Three times a week, the publication takes the stories dominating the news cycle and subjects them to a consistent analytical format: what actually happened according to primary sources, how right-leaning outlets covered it, how left-leaning outlets covered it, and what both sides distorted or omitted. Every framing claim is backed by a named outlet doing a specific, verifiable thing. Every factual claim traces to a named source.
Sunday editions are the flagship, carrying a Democracy and Governance Watch and Claim of the Week alongside the main stories. Tuesday and Thursday editions carry three stories each plus a Consensus Watch section that flags when left and right outlets surprisingly agree.
What This Is Not
This is not a fact-checking service, though facts are checked rigorously at multiple stages before publication. It is not a "both sides are equal" publication. It follows evidence. Some weeks one side distorts more than the other. The publication says so.
This is not an opinion publication. The editorial judgment lives in story selection and in The Gap, not in telling readers what to conclude. The reader should never be able to detect which side the publisher favors. If they can, the publication has failed.
This is not a subscription product. There is no paywall. There will never be a paywall. The entire archive is permanent and searchable. Every edition that has ever been published lives on this site, free, forever.
Who Publishes This
Brian Louden is an independent investigative journalist based in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. He directs the editorial process, selects every story, reviews every edition, and makes the final call on what publishes. The full production system that supports this work, including its multi-stage verification process, is described on the AI and Production System page.
Contact
Corrections, tips, and feedback are welcome. If we got something wrong, we want to know.