Editorial Principles

0. Who writes what

Our newsroom has two distinct writing roles, and an article's byline tells you which one produced it.

• Editors work from what other newsrooms have already published. They read multiple independent reports of the same event, check them against each other, and merge the differing perspectives into a single account. Their own voice is deliberately kept out of the way: when you are combining several parties' accounts, a strong narrator pushes one of them in front of the others.
• Reporters work from material we gathered ourselves — an institution's own announcement, a document our research desk retrieved and verified, or a scheduled data release. They write with a more distinct voice, and they are the only role that writes opinion columns.

Which role handles a story is decided mechanically from where the material came from, not by an AI's judgment about the story. The sourcing, review and disclosure rules below apply identically to both roles — the role changes who signs the piece and how it reads, never what may be published.

1. Sourcing rule

Most news stories are corroborated by at least two independent outlets before we write about them. Two narrow, code-enforced exceptions exist — neither is left to editorial judgment on a case-by-case basis:

• An institution's own statement about its own action — for example, a central bank announcing its own interest-rate decision, or a government body its own policy — can be published from that single, pre-verified primary source. This applies only to an institution's own conduct. Any statement that names or accuses a third party is never treated this way and still requires two independent sources, with no exception.
• Document findings from our research desk — for example, comparing two versions of draft legislation — are published only once every quoted excerpt has been checked mechanically, word-for-word, against the source document we actually retrieved. A finding whose quote cannot be verified this way is discarded before it ever reaches an editor.

1a. When corroboration does not arrive

Corroboration is our first preference, not our only option. When a story appears in just one outlet, we hold it and wait for a second, independent report. If none arrives within our waiting window, we face a choice between publishing it with clear attribution or discarding it entirely.

We used to discard it. That turned out to be the wrong call: it meant the overwhelming majority of what reached us was never reported at all, and silence is not a form of accuracy. We now publish such stories with the source named in the text — "Reuters reported that…" rather than a flat statement of fact — so you can see exactly how much weight the claim carries. Three limits apply, all enforced in code:

• The single source must be an independent news organisation. A blog, a social account, a political party, a company press release or a government statement cannot carry a story on its own. Those are parties to the events they describe, and a party's claim is not a fact.
• It must clear a significance threshold. This is not a route for publishing everything that moves; it exists so that consequential reporting is not lost.
• Never for accusations against a third party. A claim that names or accuses a person or organisation always requires two independent sources. This limit has no exceptions and is not affected by anything above.

2. Attribution, not fabrication

Every factual claim, quote, and statistic in an article is traceable back to a specific source, listed in the article's numbered bibliography. Quotes from source material are limited to short excerpts (under 15 words) with a link to the original.

3. Framing differences are reported, not hidden

When sources disagree on how to characterise an event, we describe both framings rather than silently adopting one.

3a. We do not decorate articles with our own verification status

Internally, every factual claim carries a verification state — whether it is corroborated by several outlets, rests on a single source, or is disputed. That state decides how a sentence is written: a corroborated fact is stated plainly, a single-sourced one is attributed, a disputed one is presented with the disagreement intact.

What it never does is appear in the article as reassurance. You will not read "according to verified reports" or "a verified claim states" on this site. Such phrases attribute nothing to anyone, and applying them to a single-sourced claim would actively mislead you. Our internal bookkeeping is not evidence, and we do not present it to you as though it were. This is enforced in code before publication, not left to the writing agent.

3b. Names are not removed from the news

Before any text reaches an AI provider, personal names in it are replaced with placeholders and restored afterwards, so that personal data is not handed to third-party models (see AI Transparency). We found that a writing agent sometimes wrote around a placeholder instead of using it — turning named people into "the chancellor" or "the nationalist candidate" and quietly removing the subject of the news. Articles where this happens are now rejected and rewritten rather than published. Who did something is part of the news, not an ornament on it.

4. AI disclosure is mandatory

Every AI-assisted or AI-written article carries a visible disclosure notice. See AI Transparency.

5. Editorial and legal review before publication

Before publication, every article passes through an automated editorial review (fact-to-source traceability, style, headline accuracy) and a legal review (country-specific rules, defamation risk, quotation limits). A legal finding of higher risk does not hold the article back from publication: the article is flagged for post-publication monitoring instead, and a human editor can retract or correct it at any time. See AI Transparency for how that monitoring and our reporter trust-scoring work.

6. Country-sensitive categories require extra caution

Some categories in some markets (for example, political coverage in Turkey) are withheld until a human-approval workflow is in place, to manage legal and safety risk responsibly.

7. Corrections are public

When we get something wrong, the correction is published visibly on the article itself, not quietly edited away. See Corrections.

8. Opinion is separated from fact

Our AI columnists may hold and express opinions, but every factual claim within a column is still bound by the sourcing rules above.