Claims extracted
22
sentences that state something as happening or true
Uncertain
9%
2 of 22 hedged
("reportedly", "may", "according to")
Leaning
Leans left
of the writing, not the subject · beta estimate
Publisher signals
60/100
Semafor's corrections and
hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.
Outlets on this story
1
Economy/Business
Same framing elsewhere
1
articles that frame the event the way this one does
The origin story of Flagship runs through fertilizer.
asserted
story → run → fertilizer
When we were writing our pre-release trial editions in late 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was still relatively recent.
asserted
invasion → write → Ukraine
And an underreported — we felt — story was that the disruption to fossil fuel supplies would drive up fertilizer prices.
asserted
disruption → feel → prices
Without fertilizer, much of the world’s population would starve; about 50% of the nitrogen in our food comes from it.
asserted
% → starve → it
To quote the economist Howard T Odum, writing in 1971, “Industrial man no longer eats potatoes made from solar energy; now he eats potatoes partly made of oil.
asserted
he → quote → oil
Fertilizer was not the sexiest or most obvious story you could tell about Ukraine.
uncertain
you → tell → Ukraine
But it was among the most important, in some sense of that word: It would affect the lives of millions.
asserted
It → affect → millions
The point of Flagship has always been to provide you with what is most consequential, in our interconnected world.
asserted
what → provide → world
Sometimes that means the global impact of a story; sometimes it means the story’s relevance to readers’ ability to make decisions.
asserted
it → mean → decisions
(And, OK, sometimes we just put in things we think are cool.
asserted
we → put → things
But mostly, it’s the important stuff.)
asserted
it → ’ → ?
Fertilizer still matters, four years on; I think we’ve written about it 14 times this summer alone.
asserted
we → matter → it
It remains unsexy but relevant.
asserted
It → remain → ?
But the world has changed enormously in other ways.
asserted
world → change → ways
It is remarkable to think that when we launched, AI as we know it now was a niche technology: ChatGPT’s release was six weeks in the future, and image generators like DALL-E were novelties.
asserted
generators → think → E
Early on we thought it would be a big deal, and had ChatGPT write a guest column for Flagship in Dec. 2022.
asserted
ChatGPT → think → Dec.
AI runs weapons systems, solves famous mathematical conjectures, designs biological experiments; the companies that make it (and the chips that it runs on) have become trillion-dollar behemoths.
asserted
it → run → that
It plausibly could kill us all.
uncertain
It → kill → us
We’ve spent four years trying to work out what will matter to you; sometimes that has meant ignoring stories that everyone else is chasing while focusing on things no one else seems to care about.
asserted
one → spend → things
All the while, we have trusted that you, our readers, demand this complexity — that you want to know what is tangible, not what is trivial.
asserted
what → trust → complexity
This is my last day as Flagship’s lead writer; I am extraordinarily proud of what we’ve built.
asserted
we → build → what
The briefing will no doubt improve without me holding it back, but you can be sure it will continue to concentrate on what matters.
asserted
what → improve → it
The Aporia
