Human News is the first news service to try to quantify the importance of each story and to set its length accordingly. Editors of other news services subjectively judge the importance of each story, and thus how much space to give it. Our principle is that all humans are equal. The length of a story is directly proportional to the number of people affected and how deeply they are affected. Although this calculation can usually be no more than a very crude estimate, at least we try to quantify. Beneath each story you can follow a link to our estimate of the effect on people and our formula for setting the story's length.

The phrase, "Everyone to count for one and no one for more than one," describes the principle of Human News. It is attributed to Jeremy Bentham, who helped develop the idea that one should strive for the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people, also known as utilitarianism.