Pondero adds a news section to the site

Pondero today launched a new /news/ section dedicated to short, primary-source-cited briefs on AI company moves, model releases, leadership changes, funding rounds, regulation, research, and vendor incidents. The build spec landed on main as PR #193 on 2026-05-19.

What

The news section sits alongside, not inside, the existing guides and reviews pipeline. Briefs target 300 to 600 words, follow a neutral editorial voice, and cite every quantitative claim inline to a primary or secondary source. The committed build spec defines the full source tiering, scope rules, gate compatibility, cost model, and launch sequence (per the spec doc merged in commit 3f6c777).

The collection schema requires a category from a fixed enum (model-release, product-launch, leadership, funding, regulation, research, incident), a vendor list, and at least one source URL per entry. News briefs are routed at /news/<dated-slug>/ and emit NewsArticle JSON-LD distinct from the guides' Article schema.

Why it matters

Pondero's deep content (guides, reviews) is the trust and affiliate-revenue engine and is slow by design. The news section adds a freshness layer: a place to surface what happened today, in plain language, with a working link to the primary source. The two content types stay deliberately separate so neither contaminates the other.

The build also lays groundwork for Google News surface eligibility (a 48-hour Google News sitemap at /news_sitemap.xml) and a dedicated /news/rss.xml feed.

What to watch next

The news pipeline (news-scout plus news-writer subagents, on a staggered 5-slot daily schedule) ships in a follow-up PR per the spec's launch sequence. Newsletter rollup integration and per-news social posting are deferred until two to three days of clean publishing under the pipeline.