Editorial Policy

Cubed News exists to do one thing well: examine the news in three dimensions — the context of what happened, the perspectives that matter, and the stakes for the people affected. That promise is only worth making if readers can trust how the work is produced. This page sets out, in plain terms, the standards that govern everything we publish. It is not a marketing document. It is the contract between our newsroom and the people who read us, and we expect to be held to it.

Our editorial register sits in the analytical-journalism tradition — direct, specific, sourced, and intellectually honest. We are not a content mill, a tabloid, or a vehicle for undisclosed promotion. We would rather publish less and be right than publish more and be loose with the facts.

The Four Rules

Four rules sit above everything else we do. They are deliberately simple, because rules that are easy to state are hard to quietly abandon. Every editor and contributor agrees to them before a word of theirs appears on the site.

1. Source every claim

A factual assertion in a Cubed News article must be traceable to something a reader can check. Numbers, dates, study findings, official positions, and quotations are attributed to a named, real, and appropriate source — a primary document, a recognised institution, or established reporting. Where we describe a trend rather than a precise figure, we say so honestly (“has risen sharply since 2020”) rather than inventing a false precision. If a claim cannot be grounded, it does not run. We do not fabricate statistics, study results, poll numbers, quotations, or events, and we do not dress up estimation as measurement.

2. Real authors only

Every byline on Cubed News belongs to a real human editor on our masthead who is accountable for the piece. We do not invent journalists, borrow fake credentials, or attach a person’s name to work they did not direct. We do not publish AI-generated text as if a human wrote it, and we never present a synthetic persona as a member of staff. The name at the top of an article is the name of the person answerable for it.

3. Sponsored is segregated

Editorial judgement is not for sale. Any commercial content — sponsored posts, partnerships, affiliate arrangements — is clearly and prominently labelled as such and kept visually and structurally separate from independent editorial. Advertisers and sponsors have no input into our reporting, no preview of unpublished work, and no veto over coverage that concerns them. If you cannot tell at a glance whether something is journalism or a paid placement, we have failed, and we want to hear about it.

4. Correct or remove

When we get something wrong, we fix it in the open. Material errors are corrected promptly, the correction is disclosed on the page rather than slipped in silently, and where a claim cannot be substantiated after the fact, it is removed. We do not memory-hole mistakes, and we do not pretend they did not happen. Our full process is set out in our corrections policy.

How an Article Is Made

No piece reaches readers on the strength of a single person’s say-so. Every article moves through a defined editorial workflow, and each stage is a checkpoint that a piece must clear before it advances:

• Draft — the writer assembles the reporting, structure, and argument, gathering sources as the piece takes shape.
• Submitted — the draft is handed to the relevant desk editor for review.
• Edited — an editor works the piece for accuracy, fairness, clarity, and structure, querying anything that is unclear, unsupported, or one-sided.
• Fact-Checked — factual claims are verified against their sources under our fact-checking policy, and unverifiable assertions are cut or rewritten.
• Ready — the piece has cleared editing and checking and is queued for publication, with headline, standfirst, and sourcing finalised.
• Published — the article goes live, after which it remains subject to correction if new information warrants it.

The labour involved is deliberately heavier than a single byline suggests. That friction is the point: it is what separates considered journalism from the reflexive churn we were founded to be an alternative to.

Independence

Cubed News is editorially independent. Our coverage is determined by news value and reader interest, not by the commercial interests of advertisers, sponsors, partners, or the publication’s owners. No outside party is granted influence over what we cover, how we cover it, or the conclusions we reach. Where a story touches a commercial relationship we hold, we disclose that relationship plainly so readers can weigh it for themselves.

Independence also means a firewall between our newsroom and our revenue. The people who report and edit do not answer to the people who sell advertising, and commercial considerations never determine editorial outcomes. The principles governing conflicts of interest, gifts, and fairness are detailed in our ethics policy.

Sources, Attribution, and Anonymity

We attribute openly by default. Named, on-the-record sourcing is the standard, and anonymity is granted only sparingly and for good reason — never to launder an unsupported claim or to let someone attack another party from behind a curtain. The conditions under which we grant and describe anonymous sourcing are set out in our sources and anonymity policy.

Corrections and Accountability

Accountability is not a one-way street. If you believe we have published an error — factual, contextual, or otherwise — we want to know. Write to us at corrections@cubednews.com with the article, the specific claim at issue, and any supporting information. Editorial questions, story tips, and feedback on our standards can be sent to editorial@cubednews.com.

This policy is a living document. As the practice of journalism changes — and the tools available to it change quickly — we will update these standards and date the changes, but the four rules above are not negotiable. They are the reason Cubed News exists.