Skip to content
Français

Editorial method: Le Latent newsroom, under Bastien Hugon

Updated 11 November 2026, 15:45 (Paris time)

Why “under” and not “by”

Writing “by Bastien Hugon” would mean that he wrote the article himself. That is not the case for most of our articles: they are written by the desks of Le Latent, with the help of AI.

“Le Latent newsroom, under Bastien Hugon” says something else, and it is accurate. Bastien Hugon is the publication director of Le Latent (directeur de la publication, the person legally responsible for a publication under French press law). Articles appear under his editorial direction: he sets the line of the publication and the rules every article must follow, and he carries editorial responsibility for them, as stated in the legal notice (in French). The French edition uses the same signature in French, « Rédaction sous Bastien Hugon », explained on the page Rédaction (in French).

Who writes the articles

Articles are signed by desks, one for each broad subject: AI models, apps, prices and subscriptions, society and law, scams and security, jobs and work, and so on. A desk is a collective signature, not a person: it has no invented name, photo or career. Each desk has its own page, in French, describing its speciality, its sources and its verification rules; the full list is on the team page (in French). Articles of the English edition that do not come from another desk are signed by the English edition desk (Rédaction Édition anglaise, page in French).

When a real person has written or tested something, that person is named in the article (“By …”), with a page of their own.

An English article that adapts a French one keeps the desk of the original. It is written in English for a reader outside France, from sources read again at the time of writing: it is not a machine translation of the French page, and not every French article has an English version. More on the English edition in About Le Latent.

How AI helps the newsroom

The production chain is described in full on the transparency page (in French):

  • Monitoring: spotting announcements, official documents and publications from AI companies and public bodies. Subjects are chosen according to criteria set by the editorial direction.
  • Briefing file: the primary sources are gathered in a file for each subject, with the date on which each was consulted. A language model can help summarise a long document; the summary is checked against the source before it is used.
  • Writing: desks write with the help of a language model (summaries, outlines, first drafts, rephrasing). Facts, figures and quotes come from the primary sources cited, never from the model.
  • Automatic checks before publication: primary sources with dates, quotes linked to their source, no test or rating without a real protocol, no field left unfinished. An article that fails one of these checks is not published. English articles go through the same checks, with rules written for English.
  • Publication: under the editorial direction of Bastien Hugon, according to the rules he sets.

Sources are listed at the end of every article, each with the date on which it was consulted.

What AI never does here

  • invent a test, a measurement, a rating, a quote, a figure or a source;
  • present itself as a person, or sign under a made-up name;
  • run a test: no product test has been published to date, and one can only appear if it was carried out by a named person, with its protocol published in the article (our methodology, in French);
  • set the editorial line: the subjects covered and the rules for verification and publication are decided by the editorial direction.

Reporting an error

Every confirmed error is corrected, and the correction is dated in the article and in the corrections log (in French). To report an error: corrections@lelatent.com. To write to the newsroom: redaction@lelatent.com.

Further reading