Working with stories

Stories are individual pieces of content that HeyNews pulls from your sources. When you generate a newsletter, you pick which stories to include.

What is a story?

A story is a piece of content HeyNews found from one of your sources. Each story includes:

• Title: the original headline or video title
• Summary: a brief description of what the article covers
• Source URL: link back to the original content
• Domain: the website it came from
• Published date: when it was originally published
• Tags and topics: labels you can use for filtering

Viewing stories

Go to Content Desk and open Stories. You'll see individual stories newest first, with the source name shown on each story when HeyNews knows it. Use All for everything available, New for stories found since you last checked New, and Saved for stories you marked for later.

One-off stories you add yourself stay in Stories. They do not appear as recurring

source rows in Sources, so the Sources view stays focused on feeds, saved

pages, and profiles that HeyNews can keep checking.

Search checks story titles, summaries, source names, and URLs. Results still show the real title from the original content, so a YouTube video or article stays recognizable even when HeyNews has also summarized it.

How stories get created

Stories come from several paths:

1. RSS and followed sources: HeyNews checks your RSS feeds, followed sites, Reddit, and profiles. Articles become stories automatically.

1. Newsletter platform imports: if you've connected beehiiv or Kit, HeyNews pulls URLs from your past broadcasts and turns those links into stories. It also checks links inside those broadcasts for more articles (up to 10 per issue).

1. Add a story: in Content Desk, click Add, choose Add a story, and save one link, note, or idea. This is useful for one-off items that do not come from a recurring source.

1. Chrome extension: visit any article, click the HeyNews extension, and choose Save as story (add this one article) or Follow this site (add the homepage as an ongoing source).

Selecting stories for newsletters

When you're on the Compose page, you'll see your story library in the left panel. Select the stories you want to include in your newsletter by clicking on them. You need at least one story selected to write a draft.

Compose starts with unused stories from the last 7 days, grouped by source name when HeyNews knows it. If you follow several feeds from the same publisher, Compose may show those stories together under that publisher. If there are no stories in that first window, HeyNews widens the range to 14 days, then 30 days, then all time. Open Filters if you want to include previously used stories, limit how many stories appear from each source, or choose a date range yourself.

If an AI Writer is selected, HeyNews moves better-matching stories higher in the

list. New stories can still appear before they have a relevance score, so you can

use fresh source material right away.

You can also use Smart Select by clicking Select Best. HeyNews sorts available stories by section, then picks the best matches for each one while following the story count you set per section in your AI writer. It's useful when you have a large story library and do not want to pick everything by hand.

You can also select stories directly from Content Desk > Stories. Pick the stories you want, then click Use these in the sticky selection summary. Compose opens with those stories prefilled, even if they sit outside your current Compose date or source filters.

Story stats

• All, new, and saved story counts
• Recent stories with their source names when available

Check these to see if your sources are giving you enough material to work with.