Editorial standards

These standards apply to every LetterHouseMedia publication. Individual newsletters have their own voice and subject; the rules below don't change between them.

Sourcing

We rank sources by reliability.

• Primary and wire sources sit at the top: official records, court documents, filings, peer-reviewed research and wire reports. Factual claims in news coverage need a source of this kind.
• Other reporting and commentary can point us to a story, or provide context, but doesn't by itself support a factual claim in news coverage.
• Blocked sources. Content farms, known fabricators and AI-spam sites are on a blocklist and are never cited.

Every source we cite is fetched and saved when we research an issue. Fact checks run against that saved copy. Quotes must match the source exactly and be attributed to the person who said them. Each publication names its sources; our news-focused publications list them for every issue.

How we use AI

Our newsroom is AI-assisted, and we think readers should know how.

• AI drafts; checks decide. Issues are drafted with AI models. Every factual sentence is then broken into individual claims and checked.
• Automated checks first. Before any model reviews a claim, code checks that quotes appear in the source, numbers match the cited passage, dates are plausible and links work.
• Two independent fact-checkers. Two fact-checking models from two different AI providers each review every claim against the saved sources, without seeing the other's verdict. A claim stays only if both find it supported. Otherwise it is rewritten, softened or cut, and unresolved disagreements, and any dispute about a health claim, go to a person.
• People approve. Editors approve issues at defined checkpoints. Every issue of a new publication is approved by a person before it sends. Health-related issues on our health publications get clinical review.
• Originality. We check drafts against their sources so we summarise rather than copy, and we keep quotations short.
• Images. We don't publish AI-generated images of real people in news coverage. Recipe images that are illustrations rather than photographs of the dish are labelled as illustrations.

AI makes mistakes. These checks exist because of that, and they don't make us infallible. That's what corrections are for.

Corrections

When we get a fact wrong, we correct it:

• in the next issue of the publication that made the error, and
• on the web version of the affected issue, with the date of the correction.

Each publication keeps a corrections page. You can report an error by replying to any issue or through our contact page. Every correction also becomes a test case for our fact-checking process, so the same kind of mistake is less likely to get through again.

Labels: news, analysis, opinion, sponsored

Content is labelled by what it is, and the labels look the same across all of our publications so you learn them once.

• News is factual reporting in neutral language.
• Analysis interprets the facts and must cite them.
• Opinion is a stated point of view, labelled as such, with a byline.
• Sponsored content is paid for, labelled as "Sponsored", "Advertisement" or "Paid partnership", and kept visibly separate from editorial.

Viewpoint and facts

Some publications may have a stated point of view. Where one does, the viewpoint shapes which stories it covers, how it frames them and what its opinion sections say. It never changes the facts.

• Factual claims in every publication go through the same checking process, with the same tools and the same standards.
• Our fact-checkers are never told which publication a claim came from or what its viewpoint is.
• News sections must stay free of loaded or opinion language. Opinion goes in labelled opinion or analysis sections.
• When more than one of our publications covers the same event, we compare their factual claims. Any contradiction is flagged to editors.

Contested news: how Unbiased Brief works

Political news is where our process matters most, so Unbiased Brief is the clearest example of it.

• Facts without narrative. News items report what happened in neutral language. There is no house opinion and no editorialising.
• Each side's strongest case. On a contested story, Unbiased Brief sets out the strongest argument each side makes, attributed to the people or groups making it, so you can see the disagreement for yourself.
• Every claim checked. Factual claims inside those arguments go through the same two independent fact-checkers as everything else. The fact-checkers don't know which publication a claim is for or which side it belongs to.
• Sources linked. Each issue lists its sources, with links, so you can read the originals.

Sponsors

Sponsors don't buy coverage and don't review editorial before it runs. Every sponsor creative is reviewed and approved before publication, factual claims in sponsor copy need supporting evidence, and affiliate links are disclosed next to the link. We don't currently accept political or issue advertising. Health content doesn't carry affiliate links.

Your subscription

Sign-ups on our sites use double opt-in. We never add you to another of our newsletters unless you click to join. Every issue has a one-click unsubscribe link, and we act on unsubscribes promptly.

Questions

If you think we've fallen short of these standards, tell us through our contact page.