Crossbench — Balanced Australian Politics News (inspired by Tangle)

I’m a huge fan of Tangle (go subscribe), which is a ‘balanced’ view of American politics.

Tangle’s editorial team sources ideas and quotes from both sides of the aisle and attempts to help each side understand what the other is thinking and saying. They do interviews, podcasts, and even occasional live shows.

But Australia hasn’t had something like this. It might be because Australians have been spared from hugely divisive politics until recently, but times are changing as politicians and people follow the example set by the US.

Because I’m constantly shocked by what some people think (never read the comments!), and because I don’t want to live in a bubble but nor do I want to read the Courier Mail or even The Australian, I think it’s a useful service to summarise viewpoints from those periodicals without forcing me to wade through them (much less pay for a subscription).

Thus, Crossbench — a newsletter that attempts to show both sides of the aisle.

One differentiating factor from Tangle.com (aside from the fact that it’s Australia-focused) is that it’s entirely AI-powered. This is both a weakness — the writing is always more milquetoast, and it can’t replicate the work of a journalist just yet — and a strength. The strength is that it is much more impartial than a human can be. Sure, LLMs have biases, but they’re much less biased than I am as a human. My mood is affected by things I see and hear every day. An LLM is mostly affected by how it’s programmed and trained. So I trust that impartiality more.

Right now, the service is working and pushing out a newsletter a day. You can subscribe here. If it gets popular, I’ll get another domain for it.

As for pricing — it costs me very little to run right now, but it might later, if I have to pay for more news sources. If it does, I’ll create a token subscription price, or take donations, or place ads, or something.