Reader trust
Editorial Standards
The principles used to commission, prepare, attribute and correct Herald reporting.
Accuracy
Material facts should be checked against reliable primary or contemporaneous sources. Reports distinguish confirmed information from allegation, estimate, opinion and inference. Headlines must be supported by the article.
Fairness, privacy and impartiality
The Belfast Herald aims for due impartiality rather than artificial balance. People and organisations facing significant criticism should receive a fair opportunity to respond. Intrusion into privacy must be justified by a proportionate public interest. Political and constitutional terminology should be precise and neutral.
Crime and courts
Court restrictions, reporting bans, the presumption of innocence and the distinction between allegation, charge, conviction and sentence must be observed. Content involving children, sexual offences, active proceedings, unverified accusations or serious reputational risk is held for editor review and is not eligible for routine automation.
Sources and links
Retrospective reports link to the principal sources used. Source links are separate from Herald bylines. A Herald byline identifies responsibility for the summary; it does not claim authorship of another publisher's work. Daily reports should use multiple independent source families or an authoritative primary source wherever practicable.
Retrospective archive
Entries dated from 2020 onward were compiled retrospectively from material available on the date shown. Archive pages carry a disclosure, retain source links and avoid adding later knowledge to an account presented at an earlier date. The date identifies the underlying event, not a claimed original publication date for the entry.
Event selection and citation metadata include material adapted from Wikipedia Current Events and year-in-review pages under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. Underlying reporting remains the property of its respective publishers.
Images
Every published image requires a recorded rights basis, meaningful alternative text and an accurate credit. A photograph must be directly relevant to the person, place, event or team covered. File photographs are labelled; an image is never presented as a photograph of a specific event unless its provenance supports that description. When no sufficiently relevant reusable image is held, the archive displays an image-unavailable notice.
Original photographs supplied under the Marty0 credit are used under rights held by the publisher. Watermarked derivatives are not used where the rights-held original is available.
Automation and artificial intelligence
Automated tools may assist with source discovery, deduplication, transcription, archive organisation and drafting. A candidate must pass source diversity, phrase-overlap, image-rights and legal-risk checks before publication. Low-risk routine reports may be released through the configured newsroom workflow; sensitive categories and any failed check are held for a duty editor. Automated output is subject to the same correction and complaints standards.
Corrections
Material errors are corrected promptly, with a dated note that explains the change. Minor presentation changes that do not alter meaning may be made without a formal correction note.