How we report

Accuracy comes before speed

We would rather be second and right. A story runs when it is stood up, not when a competitor publishes. Where a fact is contested, we say who is contesting it rather than splitting the difference and calling it balance.

Sourcing

• Claims of fact are attributed. If we cannot say where something came from, we explain why.
• Anonymity is granted for a reason, not for convenience, and we say what the reason is: risk of dismissal, legal exposure, personal safety.
• A single anonymous source is not enough for a contested allegation. We look for a document or a second independent account.
• Anyone facing a significant allegation is given a fair chance to respond before publication, and their response goes in the story.

Independence

No advertiser, partner or shareholder sees a story before it publishes or decides whether it runs. Where a story touches a commercial relationship of ours, we disclose it in the story itself. Journalists declare interests that could reasonably be seen to affect their reporting, and step aside where they would.

Artificial intelligence

We do not publish reporting written by a machine and passed off as human work. AI tools may be used for transcription, translation, research and analysis of large datasets, always checked by the journalist whose name is on the piece. Where AI does something a reader would want to know about, the story says so.

Images and video

Photographs are credited. We do not stage news photography or alter an image in a way that changes what it shows; colour and cropping for legibility are fine, adding or removing content is not. Archive and illustrative material is labelled as such.

Corrections

We correct openly and quickly. The corrections policy sets out what we do, how fast, and how to ask for one.

Raising a concern

If you think we have fallen short of any of this, write to legal@timesposts.com or use the contact form. Complaints go to an editor who was not involved in the story.