Editorial Policy

Accuracy before speed

We would rather be second and correct than first and wrong. In the Horn of Africa, early reports are routinely revised — casualty figures change, claimed territorial gains are reversed, and every party to a dispute has an incentive to overstate. We publish what we can stand behind.

Sourcing

Every factual claim must be attributable. Where a claim comes from an official statement rather than independent observation, we say so on the page. Where we cannot corroborate a claim, we either attribute it explicitly or leave it out.

We do not publish casualty counts, territorial claims or operational details from any party to a conflict — government, allied force or armed group — as established fact unless independently corroborated.

Developing stories

Articles about events still unfolding carry a Developing Story label. That label means details are being confirmed and the report will change. It is not a disclaimer for publishing rumour.

Corrections

We correct errors of fact promptly and publicly. Corrections are logged on the corrections page and noted on the article itself. Every article shows its publication time and, if it has been revised, its last-updated time.

Bylines

Every article is attributed. Work by a named journalist is signed by that journalist, who has a public profile showing their beat, location and previous work. Background and context written in-house carries the byline Hornafrika Desk.

A desk byline means no individual reporter stands behind the piece. We use it rather than inventing a name. Nothing here is signed by a journalist who does not exist, and no real person’s name is attached to work they did not do.

Independence

Hornafrika is independent of any government, party or armed group in the region. Advertising is clearly labelled and is never permitted to influence, preview or suppress editorial content. Sponsored material is marked as sponsored.

The four countries

Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Eritrea are treated as equal subjects. Editorial prominence follows the significance of a story, not the volume of content available about a given country. Where a story involves more than one country, we file it to all of them rather than framing it from a single capital.

Contested names and status

The Horn contains disputes over territory, status and naming. Where a name or status is contested we say so plainly, describe the competing positions, and avoid wording that implies a resolution the parties have not reached.

Artificial intelligence

AI tools may assist our journalists with research, translation, transcription and editing. They do not replace reporting. No published factual claim, quotation, statistic or source rests on AI generation. We never present AI-generated text as an eyewitness account, an interview, or a source.

Where imagery is illustrative rather than photographic, it is captioned as an editorial graphic. We do not publish synthetic images that could be mistaken for photographs of real events.

Aggregated headlines

Alongside our own reporting we run The Wire, a feed of headlines published by other newsrooms. We store a headline, a short extract and a link. We never republish full articles, never rewrite another newsroom’s headline into our own voice, and never present anyone else’s reporting as ours.

Wire content is kept visually and structurally separate from our journalism: it has its own section, always names the publisher, never appears in Trending or in a homepage lead slot, and never mixes into our article feeds. If it is on the wire, we did not report it. Which sources we use, how we fetch them, and how a publisher can opt out are set out in how the wire works.

Launch scaffolding

Articles marked as launch scaffolding were written from documented regional background to populate the platform before the newsroom began publishing. They contain no sourced quotes and no original reporting, they are labelled as such at the foot of the article, and they are replaced as real reporting arrives.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or about a specific article, can be sent through the contact page.