How we work,
in writing.

We publish only what we can show. Every factual claim in a piece has a named source, listed with the piece. Facts come from primary documents, named institutions and people on the record.

We do not publish statistics we cannot trace, quotes from living people we did not obtain ourselves, or anything we are not certain of. Pieces are labelled for what they are: Report, Explainer, Analysis or Progress. An Explainer sticks to the evergreen and widely documented; an Analysis says whose judgement it is.

A second person checks each piece against its sources before it carries the checked mark. Until then, the piece says it has not been checked twice. If a section has nothing ready, it says so, rather than showing a headline that is not real.

When we get something wrong, we fix it and we say so on the piece itself: what was wrong, what is right now and when it changed. We do not quietly edit.

Every correction is logged publicly on the piece and in that division's corrections log. The logs start empty and stay public once they are not.

Write to [email protected] with the piece and, if you can, the source. A person reads every message and replies, whether or not we agree.

Editorial decisions are made by the editors, inside the house. No advertiser, client, partner or owner buys coverage or kills it.

The house is designed to be paid for by the Agency's client work and the sale of books, not by advertising. We do not write about the Agency's clients as news; if one ever appears in a piece, the piece says so at the top. Where a writer has an interest in the subject, the piece says that too.

Samia Studios is a Jahangiri Enterprises company. The company owns the house; it does not edit it.

There is no advertising on any Samia site today. If that changes, advertising will be labelled as advertising, kept apart from editorial decisions, and never shown to children.

Sponsored or commissioned work is labelled on the piece. We do not write about the Agency's clients as news; if one ever appears in a piece, the piece says so at the top. We do not sell placement in the Newsroom, the Magazine, Learn or Kids.

Sample businesses on the Agency and portal sites (Saffron Table, Brightside Dental, Northwind Heating & Air, Meridian Law) are fictional and are always labelled sample. We never publish a real client's name without their written permission.

Software helps us in the workshop. It transcribes interviews, checks spelling, keeps the calendar, runs the rules on a client's campaigns and compiles the numbers for reports. On client pages the software that queues approvals and assembles reports is called Samia bot, and every client can see what it did.

It never writes what we publish. A person researches, writes, draws, edits, checks and signs everything on the shelf, and that person's name goes on it. If a piece was not made that way, we do not put our name on it.

If you think we broke one of these standards, write to [email protected] about a fact, or [email protected] about anything else. Say which piece, what the problem is and, if you can, where the evidence is.

A person reads every message. If we agree, we correct in public and note it on the piece. If we do not, we tell you why in plain words. Clients of the Agency with a complaint about their work write to [email protected] and get a named person back.