Sources and Anonymity Policy

Where information comes from matters as much as what it says. This policy explains how Cubed News attributes the information in its reporting, the standards we apply to sourcing, and the narrow circumstances in which we grant a source anonymity. It is a companion to our fact-checking policy, which governs how the claims a source provides are verified, and our editorial policy, whose first rule is to source every claim.

Our default is openness. Transparent attribution lets readers judge for themselves how much weight a piece of information deserves, and that judgement is part of what we owe them. Anonymity is the exception, used sparingly and only with good reason.

Attribution by Default

Cubed News favours named, on-the-record sourcing. When we report a fact, a position, or a quotation, we aim to tell readers where it came from — a named person, a specific document, a recognised institution, or identified prior reporting. Attribution is not a formality; it is how a reader distinguishes established fact from assertion and traces a claim back to its origin.

As an analytical publication, much of our work synthesises public knowledge — official statistics, peer-reviewed research, primary documents, and the established reporting of credible outlets. We cite those sources plainly, and where we can we link directly to authoritative primary material so the reader can go to the source themselves. We do not engage in false first-person reporting: we do not claim to have interviewed, surveyed, or independently witnessed something we did not.

Standards of Attribution

We describe sources as precisely as the circumstances allow. A claim attributed to “official figures” should rest on identifiable official figures; a finding attributed to “researchers” should rest on real research we can point to. We avoid vague attributions that sound authoritative while concealing the absence of a real basis — phrases that imply sourcing where none exists have no place in our work.

When we rely on reporting first published elsewhere, we credit it rather than presenting it as our own. When we quote, we render the words accurately and preserve enough context that the meaning is not distorted. And we are explicit about the limits of what a source establishes: a single official’s claim is that official’s claim, not a confirmed fact, and we frame it accordingly.

When We Grant Anonymity

There are legitimate reasons a source may be unable to speak on the record — a credible risk of retaliation, professional or legal jeopardy, or personal safety — and there is genuine public-interest information that would never surface if anonymity were never available. We recognise that. But anonymity is a privilege we extend deliberately, not a default we hand out for convenience.

Before granting it, we weigh several considerations: whether there is a real and serious reason the source cannot be named, whether the information is of genuine public interest, whether it can be corroborated independently, and whether the source is in a position to know what they claim. We do not grant anonymity simply because a source would prefer not to be associated with their statement, nor as a routine condition of access.

Critically, we do not allow anonymity to become a shield for unverified or unfair attacks. An unnamed source is not a licence to publish a claim we could not otherwise stand behind. The information still has to clear our verification standards, and an anonymous allegation against an identifiable person or organisation does not lower the bar of fairness — if anything, it raises our caution.

How We Describe Unnamed Sources

When we do use an anonymous source, we try to tell readers as much as we responsibly can about why the source is credible and why they are unnamed, without identifying them. A useful description situates the source — their proximity to the events, the basis of their knowledge — and, where relevant, indicates why they spoke on condition of anonymity. The aim is to give readers grounds to assess the source even when the name is withheld.

We are also honest about uncertainty. Where a claim rests on sourcing we cannot fully stand up, we say so or we do not run it. We would rather tell readers what we do not yet know than dress speculation as established fact.

Verification Still Applies

Anonymity changes who is named; it does not change the burden of proof. Information from an unnamed source is held to the same verification standard as anything else we publish and, for significant claims, we seek independent corroboration wherever possible. A confidential source is a starting point for reporting, not a substitute for it. The full verification process is set out in our fact-checking policy.

Questions and Concerns

If you have a question about how a particular claim in our reporting was sourced, or you believe an attribution is inaccurate or misleading, write to editorial@cubednews.com. If you believe a sourced claim is factually wrong, you can report it under our corrections policy at corrections@cubednews.com. Sourcing is where the credibility of journalism begins, and we hold ourselves accountable for getting it right.