diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 2e4615c..22c81a1 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -64,13 +64,7 @@ $(outdir)/%.html: %.html $(header) $(footer) tools/page-parse | $(outdir)
 
 # requires git-weblog from mikegerwitz's git-supp package
 news:
-	@[ "$$( which git-weblog )" ] \
-		|| ( echo "Please add git-weblog to PATH" >&2 && false )
-	git fetch origin refs/notes/*:refs/notes/*
-	git log --log-size --format="%H%n%B" master \
-		| grep -A1 '^log size \([5-9][0-9]\{2,\}\|[0-9]\{4,\}\)$$' \
-		| grep -o '^[a-z0-9]\+$$' \
-		| xargs git weblog -Dn $$( git tag -l ) \
+	tools/news-fmt < NEWS \
 		| cat $(header) $(header_news) - $(footer) \
 		| sed 's/\(<body\)/\1 class="news"/' \
 		> "$(outdir)/news.html"
diff --git a/tools/news-fmt b/tools/news-fmt
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..5062e52
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/news-fmt
@@ -0,0 +1,66 @@
+#!/usr/bin/gawk -f
+#
+# Formats NEWS for display on the website
+#
+#  Copyright (C) 2014 Mike Gerwitz
+#
+#  This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it
+#  under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
+#  Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your
+#  option) any later version.
+#
+#  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+#  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+#  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+#  GNU Affero General Public License for more details.
+#
+#  You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
+#  along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+##
+
+
+# formats for HTML output
+function escprint( str )
+{
+  # escapes
+  gsub( /&/, "\\&amp;", str )
+  gsub( /</, "\\&lt;", str )
+  gsub( />/, "\\&gt;", str )
+
+  # hyperlinks
+  print gensub( /(https?:\/\/.+)(>|\. )/, \
+    "<a href=\"\\1\">\\1</a>\\2", str \
+  )
+}
+
+
+/^commit / { next }
+
+# store author
+match( $0, /^Author: *([^<]+)/, author ) { next }
+
+# store date
+match( $0, /^Date: *(.+)$/, date ) { next }
+
+# commit messages are indented by four spaces, with the subject line
+# occupying the first paragraph (that is---until an empty line)
+/^    / {
+  # begin the subject line output
+  printf "<h3>"
+
+  do {
+    escprint( $0 " " )
+  } while ( getline && !/^    $/ );
+
+  # close subject line
+  printf "</h3>"
+
+  # the rest of the commit (that is, until we find a line with
+  # non-whitespace in column one) is the body
+  printf "<pre>"
+  while ( getline && /^\W/ ) {
+    escprint( $0 )
+  }
+  printf "</pre>"
+}
+