Research background information for stories

Research background information for stories — real work, not an imagined feature: named inside 21 evidenced career tasks. Below are four ready AI prompts for it, one per height of help: do it, make it easier to accept, decide when you are stuck, and change the pattern for good.

21career tasks name it
4prompt heights

The four heights

The same task, four distances: today's deadline, the next reviewer, the stuck moment, the pattern.

Execute — do the immediate task

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I need a tidy background pack for an editor: pull the latest press releases, timeline of events,…
I need a tidy background pack for an editor: pull the latest press releases, timeline of events, and three key statistics into a single sheet, with source links and a one-line caveat for each figure.

Improve — make it easier to accept

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Before I hand this to the reporter, make it scannable: surface the three most newsworthy figures at…
Before I hand this to the reporter, make it scannable: surface the three most newsworthy figures at the top, annotate any numbers that are estimates, and add a small table showing recent revisions so an editor can judge credibility quickly.

Decide — diagnose the stuck moment

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An editor wants a definitive unemployment rate figure for the lead, but the dataset has two…

Editor asked for an authoritative stat but I doubt its source

An editor wants a definitive unemployment rate figure for the lead, but the dataset has two different series and I’m not sure which one the bureau revised last. I can’t tell from the file provenance which series is seasonally adjusted. Which checks should I run to pick the correct series and note the uncertainty in the backgrounder so the editor can decide whether to use it as a headline?

Become — change the pattern

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Compiling backgrounders for different reporters keeps costing time because each source has…

Background packs keep landing with inconsistent sourcing and formats

Compiling backgrounders for different reporters keeps costing time because each source has different column names and citation styles. What habit or template should I adopt so every future background pack is consistent, mappable to our citation policy, and takes under 20 minutes to assemble?

Where the evidence lives

Who was seen doing this, and what people really ask.

Software tasks in the LLOS Work Atlas come from evidence, never a feature list: careers attested to do the work, real job descriptions, and the questions people actually ask (with their view counts). Facets — feature, workflow, troubleshoot, administer, deploy, scale — are open metadata: the work decides, not a taxonomy.
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The rest of the map

Same library, five ways in.