Give it the person's topic, beat or link; get the story agreed with them and
source/article.md, the only place the script's facts may come from. You read and
write it yourself; no model call. Scripting from it is guide-make-a-script-from-source.
Inputs
- What the person wants: a link, a topic or beat ("today's tech news"), and what the video is for (their own channel, marketing, an outreach gift).
- The article itself, fetched; or its text pasted by the person.
Run it
- Offer the story, unless they named one. Two or three of the day's stories, a line each: why it suits the video, and its risk. A story with deaths, or a partisan fight, can read badly in marketing or outreach use; say so. A same-day short is only worth posting on the day: check the article's date, and find today's peg if the core reporting is older. The person picks.
- Read the source. A fetch that 403s or hits a paywall: try a syndicated copy of the same report, or ask the person to paste the text or point to another public report of the story. Never write from a headline or a search snippet.
- Write
source/article.md: the link, the date and the author, then only the facts the script will use, each one line, each traceable to a sentence in the source, numbers exactly as the source gives them, and "reportedly" (or "according to …") wherever the source hedges.
# City approves stadium plan (Acme Daily, 2026-11-10, by Nora Lee)
https://example.com/news/stadium-plan
- The council voted 7–2 to approve the plan on Monday.
- The plan's cost is $1.2 billion, reportedly split between the city and the team.
- The city's own budget office says it can't fund its share before 2040.
What you get
The picked story, recorded where you keep the job's notes with its risk line, and
source/article.md: the fact list the script, every sticker and every chyron draws
from.
Tips and traps
- Only facts in
source/article.mdreach the script. Every number on a sticker or a strap traces to a line in it; a fact the script wants that isn't there goes back to the source first. - Keep the source's hedges. "Reportedly" dropped turns an allegation into a claim the video makes.
- No likeness of real people and no logos in a piece that isn't theirs: people as
silhouettes or metaphors, companies as unbranded objects. A video that must show
someone or somewhere recognizable switches to
guide-depict-real-people-and-places. - A story whose reporting is a week old needs today's peg (a vote, a ruling, a launch today) or it reads as stale on social.
Check it
Read the finished script against source/article.md, fact by fact: every number,
name and claim in the script is on the list, with its hedge.
