SXM Today / Editorial standards
The rules we work to
These are the rules our newsroom works to. They’re public so you can hold us to them.
What the labels mean
Every story says how it was produced. Here’s what each label means:
- Reporting
- Our own work. We spoke to people, read the documents, or were there.
- In brief
- A story another outlet reported first, told in our own words, with that outlet named and linked.
- Official
- What a government body, company or organisation announced, credited to them. We haven’t independently verified it.
- Analysis
- Our interpretation of events, clearly separated from the facts it’s built on.
Our sourcing rules
- Every story carries a label saying where it came from: Reporting, In brief, Official or Analysis.
- When another outlet reported something first, we say so. The story names and links them, and we never present their reporting as ours.
- Official announcements are credited to whoever issued them. We don’t present their claims as verified fact, and we check any claim about a named person before it runs.
- We write in our own words and quote sparingly — never the part that would let you skip the original.
- We correct openly. Corrections are logged publicly and dated; we don’t edit mistakes away silently.
- We don’t identify children, and we don’t treat anyone as guilty before a court has said so.
Advertising and sponsored content
Anything paid for is labelled Sponsored — clearly, before you start reading, not in small print underneath.
Advertisers do not see stories before publication, do not influence how they’re written, and cannot have one removed. Our owner has business relationships on the island that overlap with potential advertisers; that’s disclosed on our about page and it does not change this rule.
Corrections
When we get something wrong we fix it, note it on the story, and add it to a public corrections log with the date. We don’t quietly edit mistakes away — the log is append-only by design.
We may use AI tools to help research, draft, translate and edit our work. Some stories are published automatically after checks against their sources; an editor is responsible for everything we publish and corrects mistakes in the open.