The Yarn is being built into an independent Australian live-news, journalism and information platform.

The end goal is one platform combining The Yarn’s own newsroom, a personalised Live Terminal, multiple news sources, breaking-news intelligence, journalists, markets, investigations, search, memberships and direct subscriber ownership.

Here’s what we’ve built, where we are now, and what comes next.

PHASE 1 — FOUNDATION & THE YARN NEWSROOM

STATUS: LATE STAGE — CURRENTLY HERE

This has been the biggest behind-the-scenes build so far.

Already completed or substantially built

• Private Yarn Newsroom Console

• Drafting and editing system

• Publishing workflow

• Corrections and revision history

• Withdrawal of published updates

• Categories, priorities and editorial controls

• Public-safe publishing and preview system

• Database-backed newsroom infrastructure

• Admin interface for managing live updates

• Automated integration testing

• Real-browser testing infrastructure

• Recovery and fail-safe systems

• Evidence and validation systems designed to catch failures before launch

The newsroom is no longer just an idea. The core publishing system exists and has been through extensive testing.

What we’re finishing now

We are completing the final production-safety and browser-validation work before closing this phase.

The latest testing uncovered a recovery issue in the automated infrastructure. That is now being corrected before we move forward.

This is a narrow technical fix, not another redesign of the website.

Once this closes, Phase 1 is effectively finished and we move into the reader-facing platform.

PHASE 2 — NEWS SOURCES & STORY INTELLIGENCE

STATUS: NEXT

This is where The Yarn begins connecting to the wider news ecosystem.

We will:

• Connect approved news organisations, journalists and official sources

• Preserve the original source and original link for external reporting

• Standardise information coming from different publishers

• Remove duplicate stories

• Detect when different publishers are covering the same event

• Group those reports into developing-story clusters

• Track stories as they change over time

Instead of showing ten separate versions of the same breaking story, The Yarn will begin organising the event itself.

PHASE 3 — THE PUBLIC LIVE TERMINAL

STATUS: PLANNED

This is the centrepiece of the platform.

The Public Live Terminal will:

• Continuously update with developing news

• Combine The Yarn reporting with approved external reporting

• Clearly show where every story came from

• Link readers directly to original sources

• Allow readers to choose the sources they want to follow

• Allow readers to follow selected journalists

• Organise developing events in one place

• Save reader preferences across sessions

Planned viewing modes

Focused
Prioritises the sources and subjects you choose.

Balanced
Widens the mix around important stories.

Wide
Provides a broader view across the available news environment.

The aim is to give readers more control over their news feed instead of leaving everything to an opaque social-media algorithm.

PHASE 4 — BREAKING NEWS & NEWS PULSE

STATUS: PLANNED

Personalisation should never mean missing something genuinely important.

This phase will introduce:

• Platform-wide breaking-news detection

• Major developing-event alerts

• Significance ranking across multiple sources

• Universal breaking stories outside a reader’s normal source selections

• News Pulse for identifying rapidly developing stories

• Anti-manipulation and anti-brigading safeguards

The platform should be capable of recognising when something major is happening even before The Yarn has published its own report.

PHASE 5 — JOURNALISTS & COMMUNITY

STATUS: PLANNED

The Yarn will expand beyond one newsroom.

Planned features include:

• Approved journalist profiles

• Individual journalist follow systems

• Publishing histories

• Corrections and withdrawals attached to reporting records

• Contributor publishing infrastructure

• Moderated discussion around stories and developing events

The aim is journalism-focused discussion, not another generic social-media feed.

PHASE 6 — MARKETS & LIVE DATA

STATUS: PLANNED

The Live Terminal will eventually include more than news.

Planned information includes:

• Australian and international indices

• Shares

• Currencies

• Commodities

• Market charts

• Personal watchlists

• Market-open and market-closed status

• Live or delayed-data labels

• Connections between major news events and market movements

The long-term goal is for The Yarn to become something readers can keep open throughout the day as a live information terminal.

PHASE 7 — SEARCH, ARCHIVES & ALERTS

STATUS: PLANNED

Readers will be able to find and follow information beyond whatever is currently at the top of the feed.

Planned features include:

• Full news search

• Developing-story archives

• Journalist search

• Topic and source filtering

• Saved stories

• Saved developing events

• Watchlists

• Topic alerts

• Journalist alerts

• Breaking-news notifications

• Saved Live Terminal preferences

PHASE 8 — THE YARN INVESTIGATIONS, MEMBERSHIPS & SUBSCRIBERS

STATUS: PLANNED

The Yarn Investigations project will eventually become a proper part of the platform.

This will include:

• Dedicated investigation pages

• FOI request tracking

• Released government documents

• Evidence and supporting material

• Investigation progress

• Completed investigative reports

• Member-only investigation features where appropriate

We will also build out:

• Memberships

• Subscriber accounts

• Newsletter preferences

• Email infrastructure

• Payment and entitlement systems

• Direct audience ownership outside Meta and other social platforms

The goal is to reduce The Yarn’s dependence on platforms that can change reach, monetisation or access overnight.

PHASE 9 — FLAGSHIP VERSION 1 LAUNCH

STATUS: FINAL V1 PHASE

Before Version 1 is considered complete, the entire platform will go through final production hardening.

That includes:

• Security

• Privacy

• Performance

• Accessibility

• Moderation

• Backups

• Database recovery

• Provider-failure testing

• Infrastructure monitoring

• Cost controls

• Source reliability

• Legal and rights controls

• Incident response

• Emergency shutdown and rollback systems

Only after those systems work together will the first flagship version of The Yarn be considered ready.

WHERE WE ARE RIGHT NOW

Completed or advanced

✅ Yarn Newsroom Console
✅ Drafting and editing
✅ Publishing system
✅ Corrections and withdrawals
✅ Revision history
✅ Editorial controls
✅ Database foundation
✅ Admin Live Terminal workflows
✅ Automated testing
✅ Browser-validation infrastructure
✅ Recovery and safety systems
✅ Public Live Terminal architecture

Currently finishing

🟡 Final Phase 1 browser and recovery validation

Next

➡️ External news sources
➡️ Source provenance
➡️ Deduplication
➡️ Developing-story intelligence
➡️ First Public Live Terminal build

THE BUILD ORDER

PHASE 1
Foundation & Newsroom
← WE ARE HERE

↓

PHASE 2
News Sources & Story Intelligence

↓

PHASE 3
Public Live Terminal

↓

PHASE 4
Breaking News & News Pulse

↓

PHASE 5
Journalists & Community

↓

PHASE 6
Markets & Live Data

↓

PHASE 7
Search, Archives & Alerts

↓

PHASE 8
Investigations, Memberships & Subscribers

↓

PHASE 9
Flagship Version 1 Launch

THE END GOAL

The Yarn Newsroom

• Public Live Terminal

• Multiple news sources

• Personalised feeds

• Developing-story intelligence

• Breaking news

• Journalists

• Markets

• Search and alerts

• FOI investigations

• Memberships

• Direct subscriber ownership

One independent Australian news and information platform.