A non-partisan US publication and historical archive that documents authoritarianism, anti-democratic behavior, and corruption — applied to any actor without partisan favor.
The name carries two meanings of "standing": legal standing (the right to be heard, the right to be part of the record) and civic standing (where we stand as a democracy). The publication asks both questions in the daily record.
See docs/PROJECT_PLAN.md for the full project plan, including mission, editorial standard, technical stack, data model, and roadmap. See src/standards.md for the editorial standards page. See /sources/ for the public list of news sources used in automated monitoring.
- Site generator: Eleventy (11ty)
- Hosting: Cloudflare Pages
- Newsletter: Buttondown
- Content store: this public GitHub repo. Each entry is a Markdown file.
- Search (later): Pagefind
The Standing uses automated news monitoring to surface relevant stories from a curated, public list of sources. The list includes:
- National news outlets — AP, Reuters, NPR, NYT, WaPo, BBC, ProPublica, and others
- Government sources — Congressional Record, Federal Register, Supreme Court opinions, GAO reports
- Civil rights watchdogs — Brennan Center, Common Cause, Democracy Forward, ACLU
- Press freedom organizations — Reporters Without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists
- Investigative outlets — specialized sources focused on democracy accountability
All sources are public and transparent — see taxonomy/sources.yaml for the complete list, or visit thestanding.us/sources/ for the web version.
npm install npm run serve # local dev server with live reload npm run build # build to _site/
src/
_data/ # global data — site config, taxonomy loader
_includes/ # layouts and partials (Nunjucks)
entries/ # archived entries, organized by date: YYYY/MM/DD/slug.md
css/ # styles
taxonomy/
ideals.yaml # the 12 democratic ideals
abuses.yaml # specific abuses, each tied to a parent ideal
aliases.yaml # actor-name normalization (built up over time)
sources.yaml # curated list of news sources for monitoring
docs/
PROJECT_PLAN.md # full design document
specs/ # operational specs (single sources of truth)
NEWS_RESEARCH_SPEC.md
NEWS_TRIAGE_SPEC.md
URL_TO_ISSUE_SPEC.md
ARCHIVE_FIT_SPEC.md
ISSUE_TO_ENTRY_SPEC.md
EDITORIAL_WORKFLOW_SPEC.md
DAILY_DIGEST_SPEC.md
TAXONOMY_APPLICATION_SPEC.md
ACTOR_NORMALIZATION_SPEC.md
BUILD_SPEC.md
PIPELINE.md # end-to-end system overview
Drafts live on feature branches; merges to main publish. See docs/PROJECT_PLAN.md § 8 for editorial principles and § 5 for the entry data model.