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Actual News reimagines the way we find, consume, interact with, pay for and follow up on news and online media for the 21st century. Seek out news, instead of being told what’s important.

Our website (now in beta) and app (coming soon) presents stories as a mosaic of icons on a world map, designed to give news a more holistic and contextual sense, graphically linking articles and suggesting relevant followup content – or action. Use the News Wheel to cut through genres, pan or search a location, topic or event you’re interested in.

Commenting on uncontroversial stories can be fraught and combative to say the least; we think we can improve this and are experimenting with ‘troll voting’ to shut down threads which are going nowhere, useful threads for reference and a ‘Changed My Mind’ button, amongst others, to encourage showing appreciation in more reasoned ways. Defaulting to video comments and group video discussion will, in theory, encourage more civility – real debate.

We’re also working on modular tools to allow readers to organise or join in with local or national projects, and social action in response to stories – everything from volunteering through petitions, fundraising and boycotting. Similar tools allow for crowd-led investigative journalism. Vote on and fund a story you want to know more about.

We have no overarching editorial direction, besides a commitment to transparency, integrity and reason. Anyone can submit an article to Actual News, we proofread it and edit – not what you’re saying, only helping improve how it’s said. You approve or edit our edits, and publish. We’ll promote your piece and encourage readers to support your work financially – one-off, per-article, or monthly. Writers keep at least 80%, depending on required editing. This keeps paywalls, ads and clickbait away.

In short, we want to reinvent news.

Actual News CEO/ Founder. Politics graduate.