News without the noise. No ads. No autoplay video. No agenda. Just what matters, updated every hour.

What is Plain?

Plain is a free news site built around one idea: reading the news should not feel like an assault. Most news sites today are cluttered with ads, autoplaying video, cookie popups, and headlines engineered to provoke rather than inform. People have started getting their news from social media not because social media is good at news, but because everything else got so bad.

Plain is the antidote. Clean design. No ads. No tracking. No noise. Just the most important stories of the hour, clearly written and easy to read.

How it works

1. Every hour, Plain pulls the latest headlines from wire services and major news sources across six categories: World, U.S., Business, Tech, Science, and Sports.
2. An AI editorial engine reviews the headlines and selects the most important story in each category, ranked by urgency and consequence — not clicks or engagement.
3. The engine writes a clear, factual article for each top story, then ranks all stories globally so the most impactful news leads the front page regardless of category.
4. The site rebuilds and publishes. The whole process takes about two minutes.

Plain is transparent about being AI-written. The goal is not to replace journalism — the underlying reporting comes from professional newsrooms around the world. Plain synthesizes and presents it without the noise.

Editorial priorities

The AI engine ranks stories by three criteria, in order: urgency (what is actively unfolding right now), consequence (decisions or events that change something real for real people), and scope (how many people are meaningfully affected).

Plain explicitly avoids: sensationalism, outrage cycles, celebrity news, and conflict for its own sake. A major policy decision will always outrank a viral social media moment.

Who built this?

Plain was built by Andrew Dobrow, a news reader who got tired of news sites that made him feel worse for visiting them. It runs on a small server and a modest API budget. There are no investors, no advertisers, and no algorithm optimizing for your attention.

Is it really free?

Yes. Plain costs real money to keep running. It is free to read because news should be accessible to everyone. If you find it useful, consider supporting it below. Every contribution helps keep it running and independent.