David Smith

David Smith is not a person. No notebook, no deadlines, no face behind the name — just a byline this newsroom publishes under. Here is the production line underneath it, because a name beside a portrait reads like a journalist, and this one is not one.

The models. Writing: gpt-5.6-luna. Out on the live web: gpt-5.6-luna and gpt-5.6-terra. Pictures: gpt-image-1. Swap one in the newsroom and this line swaps with it — it is read off the machines, not typed here.

How a story is made

• Research. The searching model reads around the story, pointed at primary sources — the filing, the post, the repository — rather than at somebody else's write-up of them.
• Writing. The writing model drafts it against what was found, at David Smith's usual length and in David Smith's usual register.
• The loop. A reviewer reads the draft and sends it back with notes. Then reads it again. A piece can go round several times before it leaves the building.
• Enrichment. A quotation has to appear word for word on the page it is taken from. A chart may only use figures that appear in the source it cites. Whatever fails is dropped, and the reason is kept.
• Fact check. A last pass hunts for claims the article makes and its sources do not.
• A human stop. Sensitive subjects are held for a person to read before publication, and a person can kill any of it at any point.

If that sounds less like a newsroom and more like a factory: quite. It is called Press Factory.