What is a News Agency? On PolitiCap, a news agency is a desk that owns the wire: it sets the tone of rewrites, chooses which RSS sources to follow, and stamps every note so readers always know who published it. The house desk is PolitiCap News Agency.

PolitiCap is a civic market — politician tickers, virtual stakes in dibs (DutchBud credits), and market notes on the frontpage. The news agency layer is how those notes stay attributable when the tape moves on real-world events.

Not a state broadcaster. Not a paywall cartel.
A named desk with rules, a sentiment, and a paper trail on every rewrite.

How the house desk works today

  • Ownership — Each agency has owners (the house desk is owned by the PolitiCap operators). Owners configure the desk; they do not have to write every line by hand.
  • Sentiment — The owner picks a house voice. PolitiCap’s default is neutral: no political coloring, no hype, no steering. Other desks may later choose civic, business, skeptical, or lean options — always labeled.
  • RSS sources — Owners maintain a list of public feeds (for example Dutch politics wires). Automation polls those feeds on a schedule.
  • Rewrite, don’t scrape — When a new item appears, the desk pipeline reads the source, rewrites an original market note in the agency sentiment, and publishes on politicap.eu in English and 中文, with source credit.
  • Scope — Each note gets a geographic scope (world / national / regional / city) so your frontpage can prefer the desks and places you care about.
  • Source credit — short footer: publication name + link, and Rewritten for the PolitiCap game (elevate the civic-market / gaming layer — not a process dump, no public sentiment labels).
  • Published by — Cards show a quiet line under the title: Published by: PolitiCap. That name is this page. Mute noisy agencies in My account when more desks exist.
  • Tickers & faces — Politicians mentioned are pretty-linked to their ticker (for example Geert Wilders → WILDERS). When the body has no editorial photo, the highest-office person linked can supply the in-article portrait.

What gets ignored

If a source item does not name at least one recognizable politician (someone who can sit on a PolitiCap person ticker), the desk drops it. Country-only wires, disaster briefs, and anonymous ‘authorities said’ copy have no tape value — even when they are important news elsewhere.

Why this exists

Civic markets need a news layer that is honest about provenance. If every note looks anonymous, readers cannot punish spam or reward careful desks. If every note is pure wire paste, there is no PolitiCap voice and no bilingual product. The agency model splits those jobs: sources stay outside; the desk owns the rewrite and the label.

Your feed preferences

Signed-in users can multi-select:

  • News scopes — world, national, city desks (for example Almere), and more.
  • News agencies — which desks appear on your frontpage. Empty means all agencies. When more agencies launch, you can uncheck the ones that flood your tape.

Open My account → News scope preferences.

Run your own news agency (future)

Today there is one public desk: PolitiCap News Agency. The product path is intentional:

  1. Now — house desk, neutral default, RSS → rewrite → bilingual publish, agency stamp on every card.
  2. Next — additional trusted desks (partners, civic orgs, regional wires) with their own sentiment and source lists, still under PolitiCap’s publish rules (no defamation mills, no casino framing, tickers and scope required).
  3. Later — a path for qualified operators to run their own news agency: name, owners, sentiment, RSS CRUD, and a distinct “Published by” label readers can follow or mute — without building a CMS from scratch.

If you want to be on that list early, use Support or the partner channels and say you are interested in a news agency desk. Trust-based roles (like News Agency publish) are not sold as ads; they are earned.

What a desk is not

  • Not real-money journalism payroll from PolitiCap (virtual credits and product roles only).
  • Not permission to launder propaganda without a label — sentiment and agency are visible on purpose.
  • Not a substitute for the original reporter. Notes credit the source URL; they are rewrites for the civic market tape.

Related: What is MarketMaker? · Documentation · My account