What we are, and what we are not

We are a newspaper. We sell information and nothing else.

We broker no deals, introduce no buyers to sellers, and take no commission, barter or stake in anything we cover. We are not an investment adviser, a research house, a risk consultancy, or an intelligence provider to any government or industry.

The paper is funded by network advertising and app subscriptions. Neither gives anyone influence over what we publish.

Reporting

A statement of fact requires a public record, a document seen by the newsroom, or two independent sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

When reporting stops short, we say where it stopped rather than closing the gap with a guess.

Official communication is not verified fact

A statement from a government, a ministry, an armed force, a military alliance or a company is always attributed to whoever issued it, with the date and the channel it came through. It never appears as an assertion of ours.

This applies equally to every side of a conflict. In wartime every government communicates with an objective, and a paper that reproduces a communiqué as though it were reporting has stopped being a paper.

Where information exists only in an official source and could not be independently verified, we say so in the sentence itself.

Limits in defence and security reporting

We cover budgets, contracts, industry, political decisions and their effect on the map.

We do not publish information on the position, movement, readiness or vulnerability of forces, and we do not aggregate public fragments into a picture of operational capability. No piece of ours should be useful for selecting a target.

Nor do we publish classified material obtained by third parties without prior legal assessment and a public interest that justifies publication.

Sources

People in public office, in the military and in industry often speak on condition of anonymity. We grant anonymity when exposure would create professional, financial or personal risk, and when the information is supported by another route. Never to let someone attack a third party from behind cover.

We do not submit copy to sources for approval. We check facts, not paragraphs.

People named in a piece

Where a piece makes an unfavourable claim about an identifiable person or company, we approach that party before publication and allow a reasonable time to respond. The response goes into the piece, not into a later note.

If the party does not reply within the deadline, we record that they were approached and did not comment.

Conflicts of interest

Writers may not trade, broker or take commission on assets, companies or people they cover, nor provide services to a government, an armed force or a defence company while covering it. Relevant holdings and relationships are disclosed at the foot of the piece.

Invitations, access and travel paid for by third parties are disclosed on their own line in the piece where they appear.

Advertising

The site carries network advertising, served by third parties and visually separated from the text. We do not choose the advertisers, they do not choose the content, and none of them sees our reporting in advance.

We publish no sponsored content, advertorial, branded content or barter. Should we ever do so, it will be labelled as such, prominently, and will not be written by the newsroom.

Readers who prefer no advertising can subscribe through the app. The subscription opens no content: the whole paper is free on the site.

Corrections

Factual errors are corrected at the same address, with a dated note explaining what changed. We do not delete published text; we correct it and record the change.

Artificial intelligence

AI tools are used for supporting tasks: copy-editing, organising data, assisting with translation, checking editorial standards and generating the website. No reporting, interview, fact check or editorial judgement is produced by an automated system. Every piece has a human author who answers for it.