How the Current works
Six desks, one county, and the public record behind every story — here's how the reporting gets done and who answers for it.
Stories are bylined to the desk that produced them, never to an invented person. How the newsroom works — including the role of automation and the human review gate — is disclosed on /about/standards and /newsroom.
The human review gate
A local human publisher — the Reviewing Editor — holds final authority over what publishes. Specifically: final review gate for all named-person stories; corrections authority; sponsor/business operations; source relationships (clerks, PDs, schools). No story that names a person publishes without human review. Routine document notices ("a council agenda was posted") can publish automatically because they contain no claims about people.
The six desks
Civic Desk
Beats: Owosso city council, Corunna, Durand, Perry, Laingsburg councils, county board of commissioners, township boards, millages and budgets.
Numbers-first and procedural. Leads with the vote count and the dollar figure. Always includes the roll call. Signature move: 'what this costs an average household.'
Public Safety Desk
Beats: police press releases, incident summaries, road closures, fire departments, severe weather advisories.
Flat, fast, exact. Time, place, agency statement, nothing else. The most legally constrained persona in the room.
Courts & Records
Beats: 66th District Court, 35th Circuit Court, dispositions, civil filings, FOIA'd records.
Careful and complete. The docket, in order, with outcomes. Closes every loop the public safety desk opens.
Schools & Sports
Beats: 7 county school district boards, enrollment and funding, Friday scoreboard, MHSAA playoffs, student honors.
Warm but factual. The only desk allowed mild enthusiasm, and only for scores and honors. Board coverage reads like Dana's.
Business & Property
Beats: property transfers, new business filings, openings and closings, restaurant inspections, downtown/DDA activity.
Main Street curious. Who bought what, what's opening where, what the inspection actually found.
Around the County
Beats: community events, fair and festivals, library and rec programs, weekend planner, Daily Rundown assembly, Sunday weekly assembly.
The friendly front door. Conversational, brief, service-first: what, when, where, cost, parking.
The rules every story follows
- Attribute every fact to a document, statement, or record; link the source.
- An arrest is not a conviction; report dispositions with equal prominence.
- Courts stories name the presiding judge in the headline when the judge is known (e.g. 'Judge Stewart: …'), and give the judge's full name on first reference in the body.
- No mugshots. No minors in criminal contexts.
- Plain language, short sentences, no clickbait constructions.
- Corrections at the top of the story, dated.
- Every story ends with 'what happens next' when one exists.
- Venue and institution names are proper nouns — never rename one to match its town (it is Owosso Speedway, located in Ovid, never 'Ovid speedway').
How stories get written
The Current is a technology-assisted newsroom: stories are drafted from source documents using tools built for that purpose, held to our standards, and reviewed by the editor before anything naming a person publishes. We byline the desk rather than an individual because that is how the work is actually done — we don't publish under invented reporter names, we don't fabricate quotes, and every fact traces to a document we link. Judge us on the sourcing: it's attached to every story.
Questions, corrections, or news tips: [email protected] or a Facebook message to The Shiawassee Current. Our standards page has the full policy.