Methodology
How Meridian Works
Every story in Meridian is scored by real-world impact, not by clicks or recency. Here is how that works.
The Signal Score
Each story is scored on a scale of 0 to 10 using six weighted criteria. The formula is:
Global Leverage
weight 2.0xHow many countries, markets, or industries does this affect? A bilateral trade dispute scores lower than a WTO ruling.
Capital Impact
weight 1.5xCould this move significant money? Earnings surprises, rate decisions, and major M&A score higher than sentiment shifts.
Temporal Durability
weight 1.5xWill this matter in 6 months? Structural shifts score higher than one-day reactions.
Career Relevance
weight 1.0xDoes this affect job markets, skills demand, or professional decisions? Automation trends score higher than industry gossip.
Decision Utility
weight 1.0xCan a professional act on this information? Actionable intelligence scores higher than background noise.
Narrative Clarity
weight 1.0xIs the story clear and well-sourced? Multi-source corroboration with specific facts scores higher than vague reporting.
Story Tiers
Stories that meet the signal threshold are assigned to one of three tiers based on their score.
The Big Signal
The most significant development of the day. Gets full context, all key points, and the complete What Happens Next forward-looking analysis including time horizons.
Core
Substantial developments worth knowing. Key points and condensed What Happens Next analysis.
Quick
Fast signals. Brief summaries of what else moved the needle.
What Happens Next
For high-signal stories, Meridian provides forward-looking analysis covering the downstream consequences that most news coverage misses.
Signal Tracker
When Meridian publishes a story on a pending outcome — a regulatory decision, a scheduled vote, an announced merger — it flags that story as trackable. When a follow-up surfaces, it is linked back to the original coverage with a Signal Update badge, so readers can see what changed.
The 5 Editorial Pillars
Every story is classified into one of five pillars before scoring.
Power Shift
Geopolitics, policy, elections, regulation, international relations
Market Signal
Capital flows, markets, M&A, funding, earnings, economics
Tech Leverage
Technology, platforms, infrastructure, product launches
Work Futures
Employment, remote work, skills, labor markets
Frontier Edge
Science, space, biotech, health, climate tech
Deduplication
Stories are compared using embedding-based semantic similarity. Stories that are substantially similar on the same day, or within the previous 5 days, are treated as the same event. Only the highest-scoring version is kept.
Questions about the methodology? Reply to any Meridian email.
Subscribe free