Editorial Principles

How we prepare our stories

• Our sources: press releases and news pages of public institutions such as municipalities, the governorate, the university and chambers, as well as stories published by local news sites.
• Press releases: Press releases of public institutions are published unedited; the headline, lead and paragraphs are the institution's own text. Only greetings, signatures and contact lines are removed. These stories carry a note saying so.
• Use of AI: Stories compiled from local news sites are rewritten with AI assistance, based on the information in the source. Every story carries a note saying so. For press releases, AI is only used to separate the release text and to choose topic and district labels. No information, name, figure, date or opinion that is not in the source is added to the story text. Some stories end with a short box titled "Why it matters", labelled "Analysis" and kept apart from the story; it explains why the story matters to readers, based only on the source and on stories we have published before. The box is not used for politics, crime, accidents, deaths or court stories.
• Two-stage verification: Before publication every AI-written story passes rule-based checks (figures and proper names missing from the source, sensitive topics (suicide, harassment, abuse), exaggerated or clickbait wording, too much similarity to the source). A second AI reviewer then compares the written text with the source. If a claim has no counterpart in the source, the story is not published.
• Newsroom approval: Stories flagged by these checks are not published automatically; the Newsroom reviews them and they stay unpublished if they are not found suitable.
• Translation: English versions are AI translations of the Turkish story, prepared when a reader requests one. The Turkish text prevails in case of any difference in meaning.

Sources and attribution

• Every story names its source (institution or news site). For stories based on another news site we also link to that story.
• We do not copy other news sites’ text; we take the information and rebuild it in our own sentences, and we do not use other sites’ photographs.
• Photographs are only those that arrive with the press releases of public institutions.
• We do not process wire-agency stories (AA, İHA, DHA, ANKA, etc.).

What we do not publish

We do not publish stories without a known source, bulletins from unapproved senders, or text containing information not found in the source. Public-safety, accident and court reports are published as far as the source states them; victim-centred topics such as suicide, harassment and abuse are reviewed by the Newsroom first. In the stories we write ourselves we aim for a neutral, non-partisan and restrained tone; press releases appear in the institution's own words.

Errors and corrections

If you see an error in our stories, write to [email protected] with the link to the story. Confirmed errors are corrected in the story. Institutions and individuals may request a correction or removal of a story about them at the same address.

Institutions that want to send releases

You can send your press releases to [email protected]. Releases from institutions on our approved sender list are verified and then turned into stories.