The Current. News for New England. Tamworth, Armidale, the Northern Tablelands.

How this site works

The Current is a news site for New England in New South Wales: Tamworth, Armidale and the Northern Tablelands. This page explains how it is made, because you should not have to guess.

Stories are researched and drafted with AI

Our stories are researched and drafted with AI, working from the primary documents: council business papers and minutes, Planning Portal records, health district releases, water allocation statements, datasets. The AI does the long reading that no small newsroom has hours for. Every draft is then checked against the documents it came from before it is published, and the site is run by a small Australian team who are responsible for everything on it.

Every factual claim links to its primary source

Each story carries a list of the documents we actually read. Where a figure matters, we check it against the source on the day we publish. If we cannot verify something from a primary source, we attribute it clearly to whoever said it, tell you it is unverified, or leave it out. We do not invent quotes or figures. Stories built on data carry a note saying where each number came from and what it can and cannot be compared with.

What we cover, and how

We cover the public record of this region and what it means: councils, the New England Renewable Energy Zone, water, health, development and planning, the university and the regional economy. When we hold a view we say so, and it rests on facts we have stated and sourced. We are non-partisan: we cover what representatives decide and announce on the merits, not the contest between them. A politician’s media release is a signal to check, not a source in itself; where we can, we cite the agency’s own record. People appear here through their public roles and the public record.

Quiet weeks are honest

If a week’s reading turns up nothing worth your time, we publish nothing. We do not pad a thin story to make it look substantial.

Corrections

If we get something wrong, we want to know. Use the corrections form. We check the claim against the cited source, correct the story if it is wrong, and note the outcome on the story, dated. Corrections stay visible; we do not quietly rewrite.

Money

The site is free to read. It will carry clearly labelled advertising when a real advertiser takes a slot, and any story with a commercial relationship behind it says so where it appears. Sponsored content is written and checked by us to the same standard as everything else, is clearly labelled, and never buys the byline: what we cover and what we conclude is not for sale.

This is exactly what that label looks like. A story with a commercial arrangement behind it carries it at the top, before the first paragraph:

Sponsored content · example

This article is sponsored by [the business, named in full]. Like everything on The Current it was written and checked by us to the same standard, every factual claim in it links to a primary source, and the arrangement bought a labelled placement and nothing else. How advertising works here.

If you see a story here that reads like an advertisement and does not carry that label, it is a mistake and we want to know: tell us.

Fonts, analytics and your privacy

The site is self-contained: fonts are served from this site, and reading a page makes no requests to third-party services. The privacy page has the full statement.