Principles

These are the group's minimum standards. A publication may set stricter rules. It may not drop these.

Independence

The newsroom decides what to publish. Owners, executives with a commercial role, advertisers, and sponsors do not approve editorial copy and do not have a veto. Paying for distribution is not paying for a conclusion.

Evidence

Assertions that carry the piece are tied to evidence. The quality of that evidence is part of the story. A confident voice is not a substitute for a source.

Accuracy

Names, numbers, dates, and quotations are checked. When a fact cannot be established, the piece says so. Accuracy includes not implying a certainty the reporting does not have.

Context

Readers need the history, the scale, and the limit of a claim. A true detail can still mislead if the surrounding facts are cut away. Context is part of accuracy.

Corrections

When the record is wrong, it is corrected in a way a later reader can see. Quiet rewriting is not a correction. The procedure is public.

Source transparency

Sources are named unless there is a specific reason not to name them. Links and documents are used when they help a reader check the account. Provenance is part of the piece.

Fact and opinion

News, analysis, and opinion are not the same form. Analysis may interpret. Opinion may argue. Neither is presented as a bare report of what happened. The label matches the form.

Conflicts

A material interest — financial, personal, or institutional — is disclosed where it bears on the work. The absence of a published list is not a claim that no interest exists. It means no interest has been confirmed for publication.

Fairness

People and organizations at the center of a serious criticism are given a fair chance to respond when the reporting can reach them and the delay does not hide a risk the public needs to know. Response is not a right to edit the piece.

Privacy

Private people are not pulled into a story for color. Personal data is used when it is relevant to the account, not because it was easy to find. The group's own site follows the privacy notice.

Responsible technology

Tools may assist research, verification, translation, classification, and production. They may also prepare material under the automation policy. A system is not the role that answers for the result, and a machine check is not a human review.

The auditable version of these rules is theeditorial standards document.