Editorial Standards & Verification Code
This is the operational document. It describes what we do, not what we aspire to. Where our practice and this page disagree, the page is wrong and should be corrected.
Sourcing
A claim reaches publication when it can be traced to a document a reader could examine themselves: enacted or tabled legislation, a regulator's own publication, a peer-reviewed paper, a court filing, a company's filing with a securities regulator, or a named institution's published research.
We do not report a claim on the strength of another publication's account of it. Where we learn of something through secondary coverage — which is often how anyone learns of anything — we obtain the primary document before writing. If we cannot obtain it, we either do not run the piece or we state in the piece which document we were unable to see.
Anonymous sourcing is possible but constrained. An anonymous source may establish that something is worth investigating. It does not, on its own, establish that something happened. Where we rely on a source we cannot name, the article says what kind of position that person holds and why anonymity was granted.
Citation
Policy analysis and research summaries carry numbered references in APA form at the foot of the article, linking to the primary document wherever it is public. Where a document is paywalled or unpublished, the reference identifies it precisely enough to be requested.
Every article, tracker entry and report carries a citation panel producing APA, MLA and BibTeX references, because a substantial part of our readership cites for a living.
Quantities and uncertainty
A figure appears only with its source and its basis. We distinguish between what a study measured, what it estimated, and what it projected. Where a range is reported, we give the range rather than its midpoint.
We do not describe a risk as established when it is contested, and we do not describe a contested question as settled because one side of it is louder.
Artificial intelligence in our own work
We do not publish machine-generated text as editorial content. No article, policy summary, tracker entry or report on this site is written by a language model and passed off as the work of the desk.
Tools may assist with mechanical tasks — transcribing an interview, searching a corpus of filings, checking a calculation. Where they do, a person verifies the output against the source before it informs anything published. A tool's summary of a document is never a substitute for reading the document.
Content brought in by our import tooling from other publications arrives as an empty draft carrying only a headline and a link. It is a note that a story exists. It is not an article, and it cannot be published without being written.
Conflicts of interest
Anyone writing for this publication discloses holdings in, employment by, consulting relationships with, or funding from any organisation named in their piece. Where a disclosure would materially affect how a reader weighs the article, it is printed with the article rather than filed internally.
We accept no payment, travel, hospitality or access in exchange for coverage. Where an institution funds research we then report on, that funding is named in the article.
Corrections
A factual error is corrected as soon as it is confirmed. The correction is appended to the article, states what was wrong and what it now says, and carries the date. The original wording is described rather than erased.
A change that does not alter meaning — a typo, a broken link — is made without a notice. A change that alters meaning always carries one. We do not have a category of correction that goes unrecorded.
To report an error, use the contact form and choose Correction. Give the address of the article and the specific claim. An editor checks it against the original sourcing and replies within two working days, whether or not we agree with you.
Independence
Editorial decisions are made by the desk. No advertiser, sponsor, institutional partner or funder sees an article before publication or has any right to. Where a commercial relationship exists with an organisation we are covering, the article discloses it.