independent: the critic did not read DIRECTION.md

# Critic report: D-06, D-07, D-12, D-13 (round 1, 2026-10-29)
Read: candidates.md, candidate-hooks.md, concepts.md, script.md, hooks.md, hook-tests/compare.jpg, FIDELITY.md, both ANALYSIS.md and contact sheets, ref-b grid, brand-sheet.json, BRAND-MATERIAL.md, COMPLIANCE.md, the episode transcript (w_1655_1720.json, subs_packed.txt), broll info.json files, analyzer report.json. Measured: archive resolutions, reference speaker share, colour contrast, a 4 s strip of IchOSZYC7OE. Scale: 5 student, 6 template, 7 solid pro, 8 high-end agency.

## D-06
| Option | Verdict | Score | Top note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Missiles or high schools | KEEP | 8 | Weapons against schools needs no French context, so it stops a pan-Arab thumb; every named noun has dated footage on disk (M51.3 test with Macron on deck 6 Oct 2026, lycee blockades 29 Sep to 6 Oct 2026, invasion 24 Feb 2022, LPM 20 Jan 2023). The source confirms the reorder keeps meaning: the host's line is an interjection right after the guest's "وجدت موارد" (1695.62), and the guest answers it at 1709.04 with "هذا هو ما ينتقد على ماكرون من بعض الفئات المجتمع الفرنسي". |
| 2 Everyone gets paid except students | REVISE | 6 | First 3 s are French tractors (weaker for a pan-Arab viewer); the payoff "البكالوريا لا تساوي أي شيء" rests on the unverified "six teachers" anecdote and an unclear phrase at 00:16:30; "protest pays" can read as the reel endorsing blockades. Backup only once the Creteil decision document is found. |
| 3 The fake video | REJECT | 4 | The hook names a video that must never be shown, so the centre of the reel is a hole filled with abstract phones; the union and the deletion are unverified; it leaves the episode's subject. |
| 4 Fear on TV wins the far right | REJECT | 4 | An election prediction off the students topic; the payoff carries a factual slip ("50 سنة", the FN dates from Oct 1972, 54 years) and crosstalk over who says "أكثر من 100 نائب"; the hook is already in the episode's cold open. |
| 5 1789, 1848, 1968, domino | REJECT | 5 | The Arab Spring domino line, its best asset for this audience, works only by moving it off its referent (Italy's radical left); "1848 began in France" is contestable (Palermo, Jan 1848); P1 has a mis-heard "الابتدائية"; 85-minute stitch. |
| 6 The Melenchon and Le Pen "game" | REJECT | 3 | A collusion claim about two named politicians from one guest, contradicted by the other after the break (00:50:58); unclear word at 00:48:43. Worst balance. |

Pick: 1 (KEEP, 8).
Fixes: (a) the host voices critics; keep "فيه ناس تقول لك" framed on screen (RC4), and if the attribution reads thin, the guest's own "هذا هو ما ينتقد على ماكرون من بعض الفئات" (from 1709.04) is a spoken attribution already in the footage. (b) The cut joins four source places (05:24, 18:37 to 19:20, 27:47 to 28:29); the seam check at 1159.62 is the one to hear twice in the final mix.

## D-07
| Option | Verdict | Score | Top note |
|---|---|---|---|
| A House font, measured colours, no bug, title sign-off | REVISE | 7 | Looks like the programme, but better, and every red is tied to a subject. It fails the bad-day test as written: the font's own licence text (brand-sheet.json) reads "usage only by Al Jazeera Network by written approval ... No modification or reproduction", and the project is "not owner". "Render only, never redistributed" does not answer a usage restriction: text burned into a public post is reproduction. With house font, title sign-off and no sign of who cut it, the reel also reads as AJ's own edit of an argument AJ did not cut. |
| B Free look-alike (Tajawal or Cairo) | REVISE | 6 | Clean licence, and the identity survives on colour, disc, kashida and title. But both faces are picked by popularity, not likeness; neither is shown next to the house font. |
| C AJ360 package | REJECT | 3 | Platform marks of another outlet on an AJ Arabic source; the 360 logo, badge and app pill tie to no spoken line (owner rule); a logo used by a non-owner is the strongest impersonation of the four; the navy end card is ref-b copied, not reasoned. |
| D Neutral, no marks | REJECT | 4 | Any channel reposting the clip would look like this (competitor swap: yes), and the brief asks for the programme's style. Not even achievable without cropping: the episode's own "محاولة فهم" corner mark is in the footage (hook test C, 0.2 s). |

Pick: A, REVISE.
Fixes: (1) Gate the house-font master: private pitch, or public only with AJ's written approval (the footage needs it anyway, COMPLIANCE "Open items"); keep a B-font render path for any public post without it. Say "unofficial edit" in the post text and the delivery note, never on screen. (2) For that fallback, choose the free face from a side-by-side of the real title words (محاولة فهم، الصاروخ الباليستي، الثانويات) against the house font: weight, terminals, tatweel behaviour. (3) One rule for the episode's corner mark: crop it out of every speaker shot or keep it in all; today it shows in some crops (hook test C) and not others.
Gates: default look passes (ground #302722 hue 21, saturation 0.17; disc #C0303C hue 355, saturation 0.60). Contrast on the ground: white 14.1:1, silver #D6CCCE 9.3:1, pin #E44848 3.7:1, crimson entry #C23447 2.7:1, under 3:1, so crimson is only a transient entry state (8 to 12 frames, Bold, large), never a word's resting colour. Script: Arabic only, both weights; no digits on screen.

## D-12
Message restated from the concepts alone: critics ask why France can afford a missile but not its high schools; the guest says the state claims it has no money, yet found money for the army after Ukraine. Passes.

| Option | Verdict | Score | Top note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 The contradiction, proved | KEEP | 7 | The only reading where the claim is shown, not told, and every image is the literal thing named, dated. Execution gaps below. |
| 2 The guest alone | REJECT | 5 | The missile is named twice in the first 9 s and never seen; hook test B has "nothing yet to see" in its first 3 s; talking head plus kinetic type is the default any outlet could use unchanged. |
| 3 The ledger | REJECT | 3 | Needs numbers not said in the clip (RC1), and the episode's own numbers break it: Kamil gives education 63 bn EUR (00:25:29) and defence 57 bn EUR (00:39:13), so two columns would show schools getting more than the army. The guest argues about increases ("أن تزيد من نفقات الجيش"), not totals. |

Pick: 1 (KEEP, 7).
Fixes, by impact:
1. Macron is named at 1700.18, but hook test A shows only the missile. The deck shot exists (IchOSZYC7OE: Macron with binoculars, then face on), but it is a 720p aggregator upload (GeoVision 24) with a burned-in red title band "La France teste son missile balistique nucléaire M51.3" across the lower third of every frame. Trace the original (Elysee or Ministere des Armees) before it carries the hook.
2. Off-date clips on disk: p8s2PGHcjX8 (10 Sep 2025, "Bloquons tout") is not the 2026 movement; moPoCtJtLtc (19 Jan 2018) predates the war and would falsify "عندما بدأت حرب أوكرانيا". Keep both out (RD2). The 17 Oct clips (izRut1G21S4, kaWOUUuKxbY) show a broad "vie chere" march (gilets jaunes, farmers, climate): wrong under "الثانويات", right under "قسمًا من الشارع الفرنسي".
3. RD2 collides with "no text over archive" and RC1: the 2022 and 2023 clips need a visible year or they pass as current. A small source credit on archive ("AFP 2022", "FRANCE 24 2023") solves both and the licences ask for it; log it as a provenance exception to RC1, not a claim.
4. Ambition: make "وجدت موارد" the hero moment on the guest's face, not on archive. Army archive on "نفقات الجيش" (1692.08 to 1693.06), hard cut back to the lit guest on "وجدت" with the F4 push-in, hold through the held vowel of "موارد" to 1695.62. The loop opened at 8.6 s closes on the speaker.
5. No crosshair on Macron (ref-a used one for an assassinated minister); the disc alone marks him as the subject.

## D-13
| Option | Verdict | Score | Top note |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Reference presenter rhythm | REVISE | 7 | Right grammar, wrong number. Measured from report.json shots, the references keep the speaker on screen 87% (ref-a: archive 7.44 to 11.08 and 16.44 to 20.36, 7.6 s of 58.6 s) and 79% (ref-b: archive 10.04 to 13.95 and 21.12 to 22.59, end card 48.42 to 54.49; 89% before the card), not 60 to 70%. The paper edit has only 3.8 s of pause (2.0, 0.4, 1.4 s), so 60 to 70% would put 20 to 27 s of archive over speech, against the references' "proof in the silence". |
| B Generic house numbers | REJECT | 3 | ASL 1.1 to 1.4 s means 48 to 61 cuts in 66.8 s; 50 to 55% full B-roll means 33 to 37 s of archive, but the script names about 8 filmable things, so most archive would sit on abstractions (debt, "signals", "false thesis") tied to no word; split screens shrink the speaker and appear in neither reference. |
| C Speaker only | REJECT | 4 | Safe, but a missile and a war named and never seen; the programme's archive signature is gone; the hook loses its image (test B). |

Pick: A, REVISE.
Fixes: (1) Target speaker 75 to 85%: the hook missile and Macron, the 2.0 s pause montage, and cutaways of 0.6 to 1.2 s only on named filmable nouns (الثانويات؛ حرب أوكرانيا in its own 0.68 s pause, 1689.12 to 1689.80; نفقات الجيش); none on مديونيتها or أموال. (2) Zoom budget by source: the episode is 3840x2160, so a 9:16 crop is 1215 px wide and carries 1.10 cleanly; 10 of 18 archive clips are 1280x720, a 405 px crop, 2.67x upscale before any zoom. No digital zoom on 720p archive; put the 1080p sources (France 3 missile, FRANCE 24 2023, AJ reports, T0KHYCHlk2U) on the longest archive beats. (3) Red pulses only on the missile and army archive; the high-school montage stays desaturated with no red: in the host's line the schools are the neglected side, and red on pupils (many are minors) marks them as the alarm.

## Takeaway
Verdict: REVISE. The line "France pleads poverty for its schools while it found money for its army, a contradiction that pushed students into the street" goes beyond the clip in four places:
1. "pleads poverty for its schools": the guest quotes the government as having no money "نخصصها أكثر لقطاع التعليم", no MORE money for education. Precision matters here, since the episode's own figures put education (63 bn) above defence (57 bn).
2. "found money for its army" is said, but as the view of "بعض الهيئات أو بعض أجزاء من المجتمع الفرنسي" who call the no-money claim "أطروحة كاذبة". The takeaway states it in the reel's own voice.
3. "a contradiction that pushed students into the street": the guest calls the "no money" message "أحد المحركات", one of the drivers, of the young going out; the contradiction is what angered "قسمًا من الشارع الفرنسي", not the students specifically.
4. Two ideas joined (the contradiction and its effect), with two figures of speech ("pleads poverty", "pushed into the street").
Proposed line: "Critics reject the French state's claim that it has no more money for schools, since it found money to raise army spending." Arabic: "منتقدون في فرنسا يرفضون قول الدولة إنها لا تملك أموالًا إضافية للتعليم، لأنها وجدت موارد لزيادة نفقات الجيش."
Literal anchors: in row 6 "الشارع الفرنسي" means public opinion; lycee footage there tells the viewer the pupils are the critics. Use the 17 Oct broad mobilisation on that phrase.