Editorial standards
Short enough to read, plain enough to hold us to. This page is the contract between the Gazette and its readers.
How stories are chosen
Every story is accepted or declined on editorial merit, before any money is discussed. Payment cannot buy acceptance, a kinder edit, or a better headline. It can only move a publication date.
The paper has three kinds of stories, and we keep the difference visible:
- Found stories didn’t ask. Our editors cover startups we find newsworthy; nobody is charged and nobody is warned.
- Queue stories waited. Accepted submissions are published free, in order, from a fixed number of weekly slots.
- Sponsored stories chose their date. Accepted stories can pay to publish sooner. They carry a visible Sponsored label — same story, same standards; the label just says who chose the date.
Payment moves a date and nothing else. It does not buy acceptance, a kinder edit, a better headline, or a quieter correction, and no advertiser or partner sees a story before it runs.
Facts
Every number in the paper carries a source the reader could check, shown in the story’s facts box. If a claim cannot be sourced, it does not run. Nothing is invented: no quotes, no figures, no adjectives dressed as facts.
How stories are made
Stories are drafted with software assistance against these rules, then edited, fact-checked and approved by a human editor. Nothing is published automatically, and nothing is published unread.
One exception, stated plainly: the short note that opens the Saturday Edition is drafted by software from that week’s published stories, and goes out unless the editor changes it first. It runs unsigned unless the editor wrote it, and every figure in it is checked against the stories it summarises — a note that fails the check is not sent. Every story it points to was approved by a human editor.
Corrections
We correct factual errors visibly, in place, with a dated note. Stories are not silently edited and are not taken down because a subject stopped liking them.
One story per startup
A startup appears at most once every six months, unless something genuinely new happens. The paper is a record, not a billboard.
Links
Featured companies may have up to two links, to their own properties, with natural anchor text. We never place links to third-party sites, and sponsored stories’ outbound links are marked as sponsored in the page code.
Questions about any of this belong on the news desk — the form reaches a human.