MOVING POV · APR 14, 1906
A trip down Market Street before the fire
A camera rides the front of a Market Street cable car four days before the earthquake—ordinary street life preserved by position.
Source + rights record ↗ A FIELD KIT FOR THE CITIZEN REPORTER
The news, recorded by the people standing there.
Anyone can preserve a source. NewsReal is a witness-recorded news network in development; this first slice gives the citizen reporter a local camera, capture notes, and an exact-file fingerprint they can inspect. The product path keeps every original and revision visible in the public record.
- STATUS
- Live v0.1
- DOMAIN
- newsreal.app
- NETWORK
- No uploads in v0.1
You are a witness.
Record the whole moment before narrating it. Hold context. Keep enough distance to stay safe. Protect vulnerable people when visibility could put them at risk.
Your job is to preserve a source that other people can inspect, compare, question, and understand. Record with care and let the evidence carry the moment.
News has always begun with the camera that got there.
These real 1906 actuality films from the Library of Congress serve as historical visual references. Their archival status separates them clearly from NewsReal captures and current events. Each frame keeps its title, date, source, and known caveats attached.
AFTERMATH · MAY 1906
San Francisco earthquake and fire
Aftermath footage from early May. The Library notes sensational title cards and a possibly staged scene; the caveat stays attached.
Source + rights record ↗
SECOND ANGLE · MAY 1906
Exploded gas tanks, U.S. Mint, Emporium and Spreckels Building
A separate camera pans across downtown ruins from south of Market Street. Another position, another partial view.
Source + rights record ↗Public domain · Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division · Before and After the Great Earthquake and Fire collection.
A traceable route from clip to event.
The first block works now. Signed capture and corroboration are the next layers on the product path.
Local capture
Record in the browser. Create an unsigned sidecar with time, optional location, media settings, and SHA–256.
Trusted capture
Bind the media hash to a server challenge, an attested NewsReal app/device, a trusted timestamp, and a portable signed provenance manifest.
Corroborated event
Independent nearby captures agree—or disagree—on time, geometry, motion, lighting, and audio. Outliers enter review as unresolved evidence.
Many angles. One inspectable address.
An event record is a shared address that keeps every source, receipt, and contradiction attached.
01REC
18:42:09SRC–0ABROWSER CAPTURELOCAL RECEIPT02REC
18:42:17SRC–12BROWSER CAPTURELOCAL RECEIPT03REC
18:42:31SRC–27BROWSER CAPTURELOCAL RECEIPT SAMPLE · 3 SOURCES
EVENT–ATX–0710
Proposed grouping: time · location · transcript similarity
- EARLIEST
- 18:42:09
- RADIUS
- 44 m
- STATUS
- UNREVIEWED
03 / PUBLICATION RULE · EVERY PUBLIC VIDEO
Every public story begins with another angle.
Choosing Publish starts a pairing request. The capture enters the public feed after NewsReal compares it with at least one independent nearby recording.
SOURCE AYOUR ANGLEPAIRING
+SOURCE BNEARBY WITNESSINDEPENDENT DEVICE
→PUBLIC EVENT2+ ANGLESSOURCES ATTACHED
AGREEThe event can enter the public record with both source clips attached.
CONFLICTBoth angles stay preserved and the event goes to review.
NO MATCH YETKeep it private or invite a co-witness. Review can only recheck a rejected pairing candidate.
Three reviews keep the door open.
Review three independent video-pairs each day and your NewsReal membership stays free. A paid membership is also available and funds storage, reporter safety, and the hard cases that need deeper verification.
Same event?
Compare place, time, visible landmarks, and the moment each angle contains.
Signals line up?
Listen for shared audio, motion, lighting, and sequence. Compare observable evidence.
What conflicts?
Choose agree, conflict, or not enough overlap. Explain the observable reason.
OBSERVABLE EVIDENCEConsensus and reviewer reliability route conflicts to deeper review. Every source remains attached.
HUMANS FIRST · AI SECONDPeople handle ordinary comparison. Machine analysis is reserved for captions, geometry, anomalies, and escalations.
SENSITIVE-CONTENT CHOICESkip graphic or sensitive pairs without penalty. Exact witness locations remain hidden.
History is stewarded in public.
An accepted source becomes a permanent evidence object. NewsReal is designed to seal its exact bytes into a signed, append-only event manifest and replicate the original across independently operated vault nodes. Every changed file begins a new lineage while the original remains in place.
HISTORICAL REFERENCE / PRESERVED SOURCE
A record survives when its origin travels with it.
This 1906 camera pan reached us with a catalog record, date, title, and source institution attached. NewsReal turns that accidental durability into a system: exact originals, replicated custody, and inspectable lineage.
Inspect the Library of Congress record ↗The native camera binds the media to a server challenge, capture signals, trusted timestamp, device-bound signature, and portable provenance manifest.
CAPTURE SIGNATURE · SHA–256Content-addressed, encrypted replicas are held by multiple operators. Each node signs a custody receipt so history remains available across independent stewards.
NODE A · NODE B · NODE C+A public verifier can re-hash an authorized copy, check signatures and timestamps, and follow every derivative back to its source. Mismatches become visible.
MATCH · CONFLICT · MISSINGCRYPTOGRAPHY CHECKS THE FILEHashes, signatures, timestamps, custody receipts, and append-only manifests show whether preserved bytes and lineage still match.
AI INSPECTS FOR ANOMALIESMachine analysis compares encoding, pixel continuity, motion, lighting, audio, and nearby angles. Cryptography, custody receipts, corroboration, and human review establish what the evidence supports.
EVERY CHANGE KEEPS A RECEIPTCrops, captions, corrections, blurs, withdrawals, and moderation actions become traceable layers. Where retention is lawful, the original remains intact.
FROM NOW ON, HISTORY KEEPS ITS RECEIPTS.A durable record of events and the evidence around them, held across a network of independent stewards.
Pair first. Join the local record.
After at least two independent nearby captures are compared, a corroborated story can enter a coarse geographic area while each witness's precise position stays protected. NewsReal groups the sources by place, time, and transcript similarity, then generates a captioned event view with every angle still attached.
01020304
AREA · EAST AUSTIN4 PUBLISHED SOURCES
Four witnesses recorded the same street closure.
Published clips captured the closure from four nearby positions between 6:42 and 6:45 PM.
- AREA
- EAST AUSTIN
- WINDOW
- 03:18
- SOURCES
- 04
- CAPTION
- AI · UNREVIEWED
The receipt describes the file. The world still requires judgment.
A stronger receipt can establish…
- Which exact bytes were fingerprinted.
- When a participating server first saw them.
- Which capture signals were present or missing.
- Whether a later file still matches the recorded hash.
A receipt cannot establish…
- That a scene was not staged.
- That device time or browser location is honest.
- That one angle contains the whole context.
- That an interpretation of the footage is true.
Provenance is the trace that lets people inspect the evidence. Judgment, corroboration, and moderation still matter.
Reality stays intact.
NewsReal is being designed as an adult public-evidence network. Footage remains available across political viewpoints, institutional discomfort, and difficult events. The source stays the source; AI captions remain visibly attached as a separate layer.
Uncomfortable news remains news.
- Evidence-based ranking
- Declared edits and safety actions
- AI layers stay labeled
- Every action gets a reason and an appeal path
Protect the witness. Preserve the record.
Viewer-controlled warnings, blur, location delay, and source-safety controls shape how sensitive evidence is revealed while history remains intact. Direct exploitation, doxxing, credible threats, and unlawful material remain outside the public network.
18+ ENTRYConsent, reporter safety, and the law stay active at every age gate.
09 / WORKING V0.1
The citizen reporter field kit.
Nothing opens until you ask. Nothing uploads. Record what you witnessed, keep the original context close, then save the video and its unsigned local capture notes.
- Camera + microphone after one explicit click
- Landscape encouraged for context; portrait accepted when speed or safety wins
- Precise browser location optional and off by default
- 60-second in-memory capture limit
- SHA–256 fingerprint of exact video bytes
- Separate video and JSON downloads
LOCAL PROTOTYPE
NRLOCALCamera stays closed until you open it.No recording or location is sent to NewsReal.
Location not attached
The local recorder keeps this recording and location inside this tab until you save or discard them. Maximum recording: 60 seconds.
Earn the right to call it provenance.
- NOWLocal field recorder
Test capture ergonomics, local receipts, privacy language, and cross-browser media output.
- NEXTSigned capture chain
Server timestamping, portable provenance manifests, evidence-strength tiers, and safe location controls.
- THENSmall event pilot
One constrained community, human review, consent rules, source inspection, and transparent clustering.
- LATERPublic network
Feed, map, review-to-belong membership, institutional footage licensing, witness rights, payouts, and appeals at scale.
Help build the field kit the public deserves.
NewsReal is looking for the people who know where citizen reporting becomes powerful, dangerous, or easy to dismiss—and want to build a careful pilot around real witnesses.
skyler@marucollective.org →