Magpie is a daily audio news briefing covering the stories that shaped the past twenty-four hours, with specific focus on India and the United States. A new edition is published each morning with each segment kept under 10 minutes to get one up to speed quickly. A couple of longer weekly-once segments take a deeper dive into more complex or fast-moving topics.
Each morning, a language model reads through current reporting and writes the segments. The text is then converted to speech and published here. Primary sourcing draws from the wire services: Reuters, the Associated Press, and Press Trust of India. Sectoral coverage draws on The Hindu, Mint, the Financial Times, and others.
Every specific claim is drawn from live reporting at the time of writing. Where two outlets disagree, the disagreement is noted rather than resolved. Reddit threads and commentary from named analysts on X (formerly, Twitter) are used sparingly, and only where they add something the wire copy does not.
Each story is written to answer three questions, in that order: what happened, why it matters, and what is likely to follow. Where there is no clear next development, the story ends. Weekly segments run longer and are less tightly structured.
Audio is delivered in something approximating Received Pronunciation. We rather like it.
These briefings are produced by a language model. They are intended as an orientation to the day's events, not a final source. Figures and attributed statements should be checked against primary reporting before being relied upon.