How we read and verify front pages

What Quiosque Europeu is

Every morning, Quiosque Europeu gathers the front pages of newspapers from Portugal, Europe and the Portuguese-speaking world. For each front page it shows the original headline, a Portuguese and an English translation and the main highlights.

From the verified front pages it writes a 60-second summary, Europe's top 10 headlines, a radar of themes repeated across countries, a Portugal vs. Europe comparison and, when there are enough sports front pages, a comparison of the sports papers. The rule is simple: accuracy first, then coverage, then speed.

Where the front pages come from

Front pages are found on public front page aggregators: PressReader, Kiosko.net, Freedom Forum, capasjornais.pt, capasdehoje.pt, PrimePagineQuotidiani, frontpages.gr.

Each newspaper has a list of sources, checked in order. The image address is built with the day's date and the first source that returns a valid image is used. If no source has the front page, the newspaper has no front page that day.

Front pages belong to their newspapers. Quiosque Europeu keeps no copies: images load directly from the source and each thumbnail links to the original page where the front page is published. Each card names the source and links to the newspaper's website.

How a front page is read

Each image is read by an Anthropic AI model. Portuguese newspapers and each country's reference titles are read by Claude Sonnet 5.5. The rest are read by the faster Claude Haiku 4.5.

The model is given the newspaper's name and the expected date and records only what is printed:

• the name on the masthead and whether it matches the expected newspaper;
• the date printed on the front page, or that it is illegible;
• the main headline, transcribed in the original language;
• the headline translated into European Portuguese and British English;
• up to three secondary highlights, translated without changing their meaning;
• a short summary of the front page;
• whether the headline can be read reliably and a confidence score from 0 to 1.

The model is instructed never to infer from what it already knows and never to complete illegible text.

How the date is confirmed

A front page only counts as today's if its date is confirmed in one of these ways:

• the date printed on the masthead matches the edition date;
• the printed date has the same day and month and the source has today's date in the image address (this guards against a misread year in small print);
• the printed date is illegible, but the source has today's date in the image address.

If the printed date is a different one, the front page is never shown as today's. If the newspaper does not publish on that weekday, it is marked as no edition today; if it does, it is marked as front page not verified and the image is not shown. This rejects, for example, Saturday front pages that some aggregators repeat on Sunday.

If the masthead does not match the expected newspaper, or there is neither a legible printed date nor a date in the address, the front page is not verified either.

The panel on each card (the status button) shows the source, how the date was confirmed, the time of confirmation and the reading confidence.

What each status means

✓ Verified

Newspaper and date confirmed and headline read with enough confidence: at least 60% for Claude Sonnet 5.5 readings and 75% for Claude Haiku 4.5 readings. Only these front pages feed the summary, the top 10, the radar and the comparisons.

? Headline not verified

The front page is from today and the image is shown, but the headline could not be read reliably or the confidence was below the threshold. The headline text is not published.

– No edition today

The newspaper does not publish on this weekday and no front page with today's date was found. The date of the last edition is shown.

× Front page not verified

The front page could not be confirmed: it was not found in the sources, the masthead does not match, the date is different, the date could not be confirmed or there was a technical error. The image is not shown and the reason appears on the card.

How the summary, top 10 and comparisons are written

Once every front page has been read, Claude Opus 5.5 receives only the verified ones: newspaper name, country, original headline, translation and highlights. It does not see the images or the unverified front pages. From that it writes:

• the 60-second summary, in three paragraphs: Portugal, Europe and the world;
• the 10 headlines most relevant to the European agenda;
• the European radar, with themes on the front pages of at least two countries;
• the Portugal vs. Europe comparison and one line per country on its lead story.

It is instructed to work only with what is in the headlines and highlights, adding no facts, figures or context. The same model then runs a second pass as a fact-checker: it checks every claim against the front pages and corrects or removes anything wrong, exaggerated or unsupported, adding nothing new. Top 10 entries that do not match a verified front page and countries without a verified front page are discarded.

When at least two sports front pages are verified, Claude Opus 5.5 also writes the sports comparison: what dominates the front pages, each paper's angle, A Bola, Record and O Jogo side by side, and the European sports papers. This comparison has its own fact-checking pass.

Audio

In the same pass, Claude Opus 5.5 writes a script of about 150 words, in Portuguese and in English, to be heard in one minute. The script is read by a synthetic ElevenLabs voice, in European Portuguese and in British English. There is no human presenter.

Publication schedule

• 07:00 (Lisbon): collecting and reading the front pages starts, followed by the summary, the fact-check and the audio.
• 08:00 (Lisbon): the edition is published and the newsletter is sent.
• The edition stays on the home page until the next day's edition, about 24 hours. Earlier editions remain in the archive.

Limitations

• AI can misread small print, especially dates and secondary headlines. Confidence thresholds and the date check reduce this risk but do not remove it.
• With Greek, Cyrillic and other scripts, transcription and translation are harder and confidence tends to be lower.
• Some sources are paywalled or block automated requests, so some major newspapers have no front page available.
• Some countries have no source at all and others only one or two titles, which limits the comparisons.
• The summary and comparisons reflect only the front pages verified that day, not a country's whole press.

Corrections

If you find a mistake in a headline, a translation, a date or the summary, email manha@quiosqueeuropeu.com with the link to the page and what is wrong. Corrections are logged below.

Corrections log

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Frequently asked questions