The Open Mind Charter

The Intention Behind Our Charter

At its core, editorial work means taking responsibility for what gets published. Only humans can take responsibility because only humans can face the consequences of getting it wrong. This fundamental truth shapes everything that follows.

StoryGo exists to amplify what journalists can do, help them find more stories, dig deeper, work faster. But speed and scale mean nothing if they undermine editorial integrity. AI providers to newsrooms have the power to shape how this technology is used. With that power comes the obligation to set boundaries

The principles below form our constitution, the lines we won't cross and won't help others cross. They're not perfect, and they'll evolve as we learn. We limit our own market and constrain certain uses because the AI news systems being built today determine whether AI strengthens or weakens editorial independence.

The race to deploy AI in newsrooms is accelerating. We believe this business needs shared principles before competition erodes all standards. These are our principles, but we invite other journalistic AI providers to join the discussion and help establish industry standards.

The Open Mind Charter

Human Sovereignty

StoryGo amplifies journalists’ capabilities without replacing their judgment. All editorial decisions, from source selection to publication, should be done by human journalists. This must be built into every feature: the AI suggests and assists, the journalist directs and decides. No automated workflows, no decisions without human approval.

Editorial Exclusivity

StoryGo serves only editorial clients, newsrooms and journalists operating under principles of press freedom. The solution should not be provided to bloggers, PR firms, marketing agencies, corporate communications, government units, political campaigns, advocacy organizations, content farms, aggregators or any outlet that doesn’t clearly separate news from opinion content. We may decline service to customers that have been shown to repeatedly propagate false or misleading content, as documented by credible sources, regulatory findings, or press council determinations.

Gatekeeping Responsibility

We recognize that AI news tools like StoryGo could be misused to spread misinformation. We will control access to our platform by verifying users to the extent reasonably possible and monitoring for misuse.

Human Accountability

Content created with StoryGo assistance must carry a human byline wherever the format allows. Synthetic bylines or bylines referencing only AI are not allowed. Every piece must trace back to a responsible editor. The chain is clear: journalist writes, editor approves, publication stands behind it. AI assistance shouldn’t break this human accountability chain.

Accuracy First

We commit to continuous improvement of our systems to minimize factual errors. When errors occur, they must be corrected transparently. Journalists using StoryGo retain full responsibility for fact-checking and verification. The speed of AI must never compromise the accuracy of journalism.

Political Neutrality

StoryGo’s AI must write in politically neutral language, avoiding loaded terms or partisan framing. While StoryGo adapts to each customer’s writing style and editorial voice, this customization should not extend to political positioning or ideological framing. Any political angle or interpretation must come from the journalist’s editorial choices, not from the AI’s suggestions. The system should present multiple viewpoints where relevant, not favor any political position.

Commercial Content Guidelines

Sustainable journalism sometimes requires commercial elements like affiliate partnerships. StoryGo can assist in creating such content under these principles: The content must provide genuine value to readers seeking information. Commercial relationships cannot distort facts, hide problems, or bias recommendations. Commercial partnerships must be transparently disclosed according to industry standards. StoryGo will not insert commercial links automatically. StoryGo will not assist in creating content marketing, native advertising, or sponsored content designed to appear as editorial journalism. The customer’s primary business must be journalism, not affiliate monetization.

Responsible Onboarding

All StoryGo users must complete mandatory training before accessing the platform. This training ensures users understand the fundamental risks of AI in journalism: hallucinations, the need for verification, and potential biases. We provide this through onboarding materials or training in small groups.

Operational Transparency

Journalists retain full control over which AI models power their drafting and can switch between most commercially available options, including open weight LLMs. Upon request, users can access complete logs of all AI model interactions, providing a full audit trail for how each story draft was developed.

User Privacy

We don’t track clicks and keystrokes or any front-end actions. We report only aggregated productivity metrics to customer organizations.

Intellectual Property Respect

StoryGo respects copyright. We don’t scrape protected content or circumvent access controls. We respect rate limits and only access content through legitimate APIs or public feeds.

Bias Mitigation

While we don’t enforce diversity, we actively work to ensure our technology doesn’t amplify stereotypes or systematically favor certain viewpoints or demographics in source selection. The system should help journalists challenge established narratives and question consensus views, not just reinforce them. The goal is neutral technology that expands perspectives rather than narrowing them.

Data Security

We follow strict security protocols to protect newsroom data. Customer content, sources, and unpublished work remain confidential and segregated. We don’t train our models on customer data. We only work with sub-processors and AI providers who contractually commit to not storing, logging, or training on any data from our customers. What happens in a newsroom stays in that newsroom, with one exception: we reserve the right to audit content to investigate potential violations of these principles. Such audits are conducted under strict confidentiality by Open Mind employees and are limited to verification of compliance, and findings are never used for any other purpose.

Terms Enforcement

These principles are embedded in our usage terms and actively enforced. We will terminate access for breaches.

What We're Building Toward

The following plans aren't promises about today, but aspirations for tomorrow. We share them to be transparent about our limitations and accountable for our roadmap. Some features are months away, others will take years. All require innovation and collaboration. This is the StoryGo we're building.

Economic Sustainability

We will support development of systems to enable fair compensation between news organizations when content is shared or built upon. In an AI era where facts can be instantly extracted and rewritten, those who invest in discovering the news must be rewarded. We envision automated micropayments, attribution tracking, and usage-based compensation that makes investigative journalism economically viable. The current model, where aggregators profit from others’ reporting, is unsustainable. Technology created this problem. Technology must help solve it.

Uncovering Untold Stories

StoryGo will evolve to help journalists find what others miss. Future versions will identify gaps in coverage, suggest unexplored angles, and highlight patterns that deserve investigation. The goal is to help journalists ensure every story advances the conversation with unique insights or unexplored angles.

Local Context Intelligence

StoryGo should understand cultural sensitivities, legal frameworks, and linguistic nuances across different markets. What’s acceptable journalism in one country may be inappropriate in another.

Manipulation Safeguards

StoryGo will include detection systems for coordinated manipulation campaigns, propaganda patterns, and deliberate misinformation. The system will alert journalists when sources show signs of orchestrated narratives or content that matches known disinformation tactics.

Content Authenticity

We aim to integrate provenance tracking, C2PA verification, and authenticity signals into StoryGo. Journalists should be able to verify the origin of content and provide readers with trustworthiness indicators.

Living Charter

The charter is a living document. We will revise it regularly as market realities shift and as we learn from clients, users, and advisors. We believe early principles are vital, but rigidity is not.

Where Good Intentions Meet Market Reality

Disclosure Paradox

We acknowledge that transparency about AI use in the newsroom creates a dilemma: disclosure can undermine trust even when content quality is unchanged. We don’t mandate disclosure practices for our customers, recognizing that blanket policies often penalize honest actors while non-compliant competitors gain advantage. This complex issue requires industry-wide solutions, not unilateral virtue.

Training Data Dilemma

We acknowledge the ethical concerns around AI training data, including the likelihood that major language models contain copyrighted material. While we cannot control how upstream models were trained, we commit to: (1) never training on our customers’ data, (2) respecting copyright in our own data collection, and (3) supporting industry efforts toward ethical AI development. This exemplifies why early collaboration on industry-wide principles is crucial – individual ethical stands become meaningless when competitors ignore them. Only collective standards, established before competition intensifies, can prevent the race to the bottom we’re already witnessing with training data.

Oslo, September 10, 2025

Tor Kielland, CEO
Quimey Vivas, CTO
Nicolai Astrup Wiik, Head of Business Development

This Charter was developed in consultation with our advisory board:

Sverre Munck, Investor and former EVP, Schibsted Media Group
Dr. Miriam Meckel, Professor, University of St. Gallen
Dr. Felix Simon, Research Fellow, Reuters Institute, University of Oxford
James Groeneveld, Chief Intelligence Officer, Character.AI