Standards

Editorial standards

Last updated: 27 September 2026.

The standard is Facts. Context. Perspective. Accuracy is not enough if the reader cannot see why a fact matters. Context is not a reason to soften genuine harm or to inflate a positive development.

Accuracy

A material factual statement should rest on reliable evidence. Names, dates, numbers, quotations, places, and causal claims need particular care. Perspicora does not knowingly publish a fabricated quotation, a fabricated source, or invented evidence.

Sources

Reporting uses the most authoritative available source when that is practicable: primary documents, official records, original data, direct statements, peer-reviewed research, registered trials, court records, legislation, and regulatory decisions. Secondary reporting is allowed when it is identified as such. Circular sourcing is avoided. Artificial intelligence is not a source.

Attribution and uncertainty

A source's statement is not automatically an established fact. A material allegation or a disputed claim is attributed to the person or organisation that made it. Incomplete, uncertain, or conflicting evidence is described as such. Uncertainty is not rewritten into a cleaner headline.

Context and proportion

Where it changes the meaning, a story says what the scale is, who is affected, what the comparison is, what changed, what did not change, and what is still unknown. There is no positivity score. A serious negative event stays newsworthy when no constructive reading exists.

Headlines and quotations

A headline matches the reporting. It does not imply a cause the evidence does not show, turn a statistical uncertainty into a certainty, or drop a qualification that changes the meaning. A direct quotation matches the source. Light editing must not change meaning. A synthetic quotation is never presented as words a real person spoke.

Forms of journalism

• News is reporting of events.
• Analysis is an evidence-based reading beyond the immediate facts.
• An explainer makes a subject understandable.
• A fact check assesses a defined claim against documented evidence.
• Data reporting is built on datasets or quantitative analysis.
• Research reporting is about scientific or other formal research.
• Opinion is a named author's view and is labelled as opinion.
• Sponsored material is paid or commissioned and is labelled as sponsored.

Allegations, privacy, images, and science

Accused, investigated, charged, and convicted are different states and are not treated as the same. A materially disputed allegation is described as disputed. The public interest in publishing is weighed against intrusion into private life, with particular care for minors, victims of violence, medical information, and private people drawn into a public event.

A documentary image is not altered so that it misrepresents the event. Synthetic or materially AI-generated media is disclosed as described in the AI policy. A scientific finding is reported in proportion to the evidence. A preprint is not described as peer-reviewed. Correlation is not described as causation without evidence of a cause. A relative risk is not used in a way that hides a material absolute risk.

Corrections

A material error is corrected in public. A routine update, a substantive update, a correction, a clarification, and a withdrawal are not the same thing. The public record of corrections is the corrections ledger.