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 aim to distinguish confirmed information from allegation, estimate, opinion and inference.
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 should be justified by a proportionate public interest. Political and constitutional terminology aims to be precise and neutral.
Crime and courts
Court restrictions, reporting bans, the presumption of innocence and the distinction between allegation, charge, conviction and sentence should be observed. Content involving children, sexual offences, active proceedings, unverified accusations or serious reputational risk are reviewed and content is not eligible for routine automation within the organisation.
Sources and links
Where possible our reports link to additional sources and further information when appropriate. Source links are separate from Herald bylines. Our reports aim to use multiple independent source families or an authoritative primary source wherever practicable for reporting.
Archive sources
Some 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
Our published images require a recorded rights basis, meaningful alternative text and an accurate credit. We aim to ensure each photograph is 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 and we believe the article should be published without supporting images, our archive displays an image-unavailable notice.
Photography is used only where the publisher holds the necessary rights or has recorded a suitable licence. Creator credits are reproduced exactly as supplied and required.
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 checks are held for a duty editor review. 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.