How We Write These Stories

The short version

Every story on Rappahannock starts with real data from local venues — social media posts, event announcements, menu updates, and verified intel. An AI writing assistant turns that data into an article, and a second AI pass checks it for accuracy, quality, and tone. If it passes, it publishes. If it doesn't, it goes to a human for review.

Where the data comes from

We monitor the public social media accounts of restaurants, wineries, farms, and event venues across Rappahannock County and the surrounding region. When a venue posts about a new menu, an upcoming event, a seasonal special, or a change in hours, our system captures that information and extracts the key facts: what's happening, when, where, and how much.

Some of this intel is verified automatically — if a restaurant posts their own menu, that's the source of truth. For events and specials, we use additional verification methods including cross-referencing with venue websites and, in some cases, direct outreach.

How AI fits in

We use AI (specifically, Anthropic's Claude) for two things:

• Writing — Given the raw data (venue names, event details, menu items, social post captions), the AI writes an article that organizes this information in a way that's useful to someone planning a visit. It doesn't browse the internet or make things up. It works only with the data we provide.
• Quality control — A separate AI review scores every article on accuracy, specificity, readability, and tone. Articles that score below our threshold are held back as drafts for manual review. We specifically penalize vagueness — an article that says “they have a great new menu” without naming a single dish will not pass QC.

What AI does not do

• It does not invent facts. If we don't have the price, the date, or the menu item in our data, the article won't include it.
• It does not write reviews or opinions. Our articles describe what's happening, not whether it's good.
• It does not replace local journalism. We cover what's open, what's on the menu, and what events are coming up. That's it.

Why we disclose this

Because you should know. AI-generated content is common on the internet, and most of it isn't labeled. We think that's a problem. If you're reading a story on Rappahannock, you deserve to know how it was made — and you deserve to judge for yourself whether it's useful.

We also believe transparency makes us better. When we tell you that our system only writes from verified data, that's a commitment we have to keep. Every article is a test of whether our pipeline is actually doing its job.

Something wrong?

If you find an error in any of our stories — a wrong date, a closed venue, a detail that doesn't match reality — we want to know. Our system is only as good as its data, and local knowledge is irreplaceable. Reach out and we'll fix it.