Editorial standards

Meridian is an independent, reader-funded newsroom. We have no proprietor, no shareholders and no political affiliation, and we take no instruction from advertisers. That independence is only worth something if our methods are visible. These standards set out the practices every Meridian journalist and editor is held to, and the recourse you have when we fall short. They are public on purpose: a standard you cannot point to is not a standard.

Sourcing and verification

Every factual claim we publish must rest on evidence a colleague could independently re-examine. In practice that means a claim is backed by at least one of the following: a primary document, an official record, on-the-record testimony, direct observation by our reporter, or a dataset with a traceable provenance. A single anonymous assertion is a lead, not a fact, and we do not report it as one.

Before a contested claim runs, it must clear our verification floor:

• A document or a reproducible data trail. Where a story turns on numbers, we keep the underlying data and the steps used to analyse it, so the result can be reproduced rather than taken on trust. Where it turns on a document, we retain the document and, wherever possible, confirm its authenticity with an independent party.
• Two-source corroboration for serious or disputed claims. An allegation of wrongdoing, in particular, is not published on the word of one source alone.
• Provenance over virality. Material circulating online — images, clips, leaked files — is treated as unverified until we have established where it came from and that it is what it purports to be. We do not launder a rumour into a report by attributing it to "social media".
• Plain labelling of uncertainty. If a fact is probable but not confirmed, we say so. We distinguish what we know from what we infer, and reporting from analysis.

When a story relies on technical analysis — satellite imagery, financial records, forensic data — we describe the method in terms a reader can follow, and we name the limits of what that method can show.

Use of anonymous sources

We prefer named sources, because a name lets you weigh the source's interest for yourself. We grant anonymity only when the information is in the public interest and the source faces a real risk — to their job, their safety or their liberty — by speaking on the record. Anonymity is a protection for the vulnerable, not a convenience for the powerful, and we are sparing with it for officials briefing on their own behalf.

When we do withhold a name, the following rules apply:

• A senior editor knows the source's identity and has judged them credible and well-placed. Anonymity is granted by the newsroom, not by an individual reporter alone.
• We tell you as much as we safely can about why a source is unnamed and what vantage point they speak from — for example, "a contractor with direct knowledge of the procurement" — so you can assess the claim without assessing the person.
• We do not let an anonymous source make a personal attack. Anonymity protects a witness; it is not a shield for an unaccountable accusation.
• A promise of confidentiality is absolute. We will not surrender it under legal or commercial pressure, and our source-protection practices are described in our secure tips guidance.

Fact-checking

Fact-checking at Meridian is a separate step, not a courtesy reread by the writer. Before publication, an editor who did not write the piece checks each material claim against the underlying evidence: quotations against recordings or notes, figures against source data, characterisations against the documents they rest on.

Investigations and any article making allegations of misconduct receive an additional review, in which a senior editor — and, where the legal exposure warrants it, counsel — examines the evidence file line by line. We hold a story rather than rush it. A claim that cannot survive fact-checking is cut, however good it would have looked in print.

Right of reply

Anyone we report on critically is given a fair and timely opportunity to respond before we publish. We put the specific findings to them — not a vague summary — in enough detail to allow a meaningful answer, and we allow a reasonable deadline appropriate to the seriousness of the claim.

• If a subject responds, we represent their position accurately and in proportion, in the body of the story rather than buried beneath it.
• If they decline to comment or do not reply by the deadline, we say so, and we state what we asked.
• We do not use the right of reply as a tip-off that lets a subject pre-empt the public interest — but neither do we spring a serious allegation on someone with no chance to answer it.

Corrections policy

We will get things wrong, and when we do we correct them openly. We do not quietly delete or rewrite a published error. A material correction is appended to the article, dated, and described, so the record shows both what was wrong and what is now right. Minor fixes — a misspelled name, a broken link — are noted where they affect meaning.

Independence and funding disclosure

Meridian is funded by its readers. Membership and subscriptions pay for the journalism; we take no money from political parties, governments or the subjects of our coverage, and no funder — large or small — is granted any say over what we report or how. The wall between those who fund us and those who edit us is not negotiable.

Where a grant or a major gift supports a specific area of reporting, we disclose it on the relevant work, and we structure such funding so that it never touches editorial decisions about individual stories. You can read more about how the newsroom is owned and paid for in About Meridian, and you can support the work through membership.

Conflicts of interest

A journalist's outside interests can quietly shape coverage, so we surface them rather than hope they stay irrelevant.

• Staff disclose financial holdings, paid outside work and close relationships that could bear on their reporting. A journalist with a material interest in a subject does not cover it.
• We do not accept payment, gifts, hospitality or travel from the people and institutions we cover. Where attending an event is necessary to the reporting, we pay our own way.
• Where a relevant connection is unavoidable — for instance, reporting that touches a Meridian partner or funder — we disclose it in the piece itself.
• Editors and contributors recuse themselves from stories in which they cannot be disinterested.

AI and automation policy

The words and judgements in a Meridian story are the work of named human journalists, and they remain accountable for every published claim. We do not publish articles generated by artificial intelligence, and we do not use generative tools to invent quotes, sources, imagery or events.

We use automation only in defined, supporting roles, always under human review:

• Permitted: transcribing interviews, searching and structuring large document sets, statistical and data analysis, and routine tasks such as copy-editing suggestions — each checked by a person before it informs anything we publish.
• Not permitted: drafting reporting we present as our own, fabricating or "filling in" facts, or producing photorealistic images of real events or people. Any illustrative image that is synthetic is labelled as such.
• Provenance: when a tool surfaces a fact, we trace it back to the primary source and verify it ourselves. We hold automated output to exactly the same evidentiary standard as any other lead — it earns no shortcut through fact-checking.

If we ever change how we use these tools in our journalism, we will say so here.

These standards are maintained by the Meridian editorial board and reviewed regularly. Read more about who we are, our corrections record, and how we handle your data in our privacy policy.