How the site itself gets better.

October 1, 2026

The desk in September 2026 — 54 checks published, 53 by the automated desk; across 16 topics (Congress, Crime, Economy, Elections, Energy, Federal Budget, Foreign Policy, Government, Healthcare, Jobs, Labor, Media, National Security, Technology, Trade, Voting); 89 drafts left for the editor; 2625 leads ingested; 362 social posts archived. Counted from the published record on the first of the month.

September 1, 2026

The desk in August 2026 — 0 checks published; 10 drafts left for the editor; 759 leads ingested; 117 social posts archived. Counted from the published record on the first of the month.

September 24, 2026

• A masthead. The Baseline is published and edited by Cory Hepler, and the site now says so on every page, in every byline, and in its structured data. Wherever a page said "an editor", it meant one person; that person is now named.
• Ownership, funding and legal status rewritten as dated facts: paid for by the owner, no sponsors, advertisers, grants or donors, and no claim to a partisan audience. The privacy policy is a policy now, not a prototype note.
• The header shows whether you are signed in. Race pages list only polls of the current matchup, so a candidate who lost a primary no longer appears in a general-election table. The front page shows at most two of its newest checks per speaker, and the automated desk publishes at most three checks a day on any one speaker; the rest wait as drafts for the editor.
• Reader-survey tallies stay hidden until 25 readers have answered. The plural /speakers address now redirects to the Speakers page.
• Provenance, stated: the podcast page, feed and home blurb say each episode is a synthetic voice reading a script the editor assembled from published checks; every profile biography says the automated desk drafted it from the sources listed; the press kit names the press contact; and bylines no longer repeat the speaker after the place a claim was made. The transparency page now counts, live from the database, how many published checks the editor has read and how many automated checks still await review. A plain-language terms-of-use page joins the footer.

July 3, 2026

• The record reaches 18 checks — named claims from the President, Senate Democrats, and a cabinet official, held to one standard.
• Episode 3 of the Brief covers all nine new checks, with the full transcript published.
• Sitewide polish wave: sticky navigation, this notes page, loading states, copy-a-post buttons, and structured data for search engines.

July 2, 2026

• The record grows to 14 published checks across a dozen topics, with verdicts on both sides of the aisle.
• The Baseline Brief launches: Episodes 1 and 2 with full transcripts, an open RSS feed, and a homepage player.
• Press kit published at /brand. Verdict legend, reading times, related checks, and prev/next navigation added.
• News ingest now runs twice daily. Editor drafts automatically carry their source article as citation #1.

July 1, 2026

• The Baseline publishes its first real fact-checks — war powers, foreign aid, debt interest.
• All demonstration content retired or clearly labeled; trackers switch to the real published record.
• Homepage stat band added with live counts from the database.

June 2026

• The Baseline is built: methodology, verdict scale, corrections policy, transparency pledge, roster, and the editor pipeline.