Editorial guidelines

News on Africa publishes independent reporting, analysis and service journalism across African country editions. These guidelines describe how we prepare, review, update and correct editorial work, and how we separate journalism from commercial content.

Accuracy and review

• Authors are expected to submit clear, sourced stories with titles, bylines, excerpts, categories and image alt text.
• Editors review stories before publication for accuracy, context, fairness, clarity and appropriate metadata.
• Breaking stories may start short, but updates should improve the same article rather than fragmenting a developing event into duplicates.
• When a story is updated, the site revalidates the affected pages and search index so readers receive the current version.

Corrections and updates

• Minor spelling, formatting or style fixes may be corrected in place without a note.
• Substantive updates to developing stories should include a visible updated timestamp or an update note.
• Factual corrections require a visible dated correction note explaining what changed.
• Article metadata includes machine-readable modified dates so search engines and other services can identify updated stories.

Commercial independence

• Commercial relationships must not override newsroom judgment.
• Sponsored, partner or advertising placements must be clearly labelled before readers engage deeply with the content.
• Commercial labels must be visually distinct from editorial category labels.
• Sponsored editorial content should remain useful to readers and meet News on Africa editorial standards.

Reader trust

• News on Africa does not currently use third-party advertising or analytics trackers in the app.
• Readers can create accounts, save articles, comment, and request account deletion through the published account-deletion process.
• Questions about editorial standards, privacy or data can be sent to privacy@newsonafrica.com.