The Transcript has been covering the news since 1991. In that time, a great deal of news has occurred.
The Transcript was founded on a single conviction: that the public deserves accurate, impartial reporting on a world that is, by any reasonable assessment, continuing to happen, and we will not be the publication to provide it. We have upheld this conviction since our launch, and we will continue to provide reporting that is accurate in a very broad sense of the word, and impartial in the sense that we are equally dismissive of everyone, until we get bored of it.
We cover politics, economics, world affairs, science, culture, and sport. We cover them without fear, without favour, and without the editorial interference of advertisers, governments, or any individual whose primary interest is in not being covered. The Transcript carries a single sponsor strip across its pages. That sponsor has no involvement in editorial decisions, no access to our journalists, and no ability to prevent us from covering them if they do something worth covering. We consider this the minimum acceptable standard for independence, and we mention it because others apparently do not meet it.
Our journalists are selected for their ability to report what they observe rather than what they expected to observe when they arrived. This distinction has proven, over thirty-five years, to be more difficult to maintain than it sounds.
The Transcript was established in 1991 by a group of journalists who had, collectively, worked at four of the country's major metropolitan dailies and left each of them under circumstances they describe as "philosophical differences," "an editorial restructure," "a mutual decision," and "something we'd prefer not to go into."
The publication launched with a staff of seven, a mandate to report the news as it was rather than as it was convenient for it to be, and an office in a building that no longer exists for reasons that were never fully explained to us.
Over the following three decades, The Transcript expanded its coverage to include international bureaux in London, Washington, and a location in Brussels that our Foreign Correspondent describes as "technically Brussels." We have covered four federal elections, three royal weddings, two global financial crises, and one event that remains under legal review and cannot be discussed at this time.
The Transcript's editorial staff is selected on merit and retained on the basis that they continue to produce work that meets the standard we set in 1991, which several of them were not alive to witness but have been briefed on.
The Transcript does not publish information it knows to be false. Information that may be false is attributed. Information that is unknown is described as unknown.
Editorial decisions are made by editorial staff. Not by advertisers, sources, subjects of coverage, or individuals who have emailed us to suggest we reconsider. We carry one sponsor slot across the site. That sponsor does not review, influence, or approve our coverage. If they did, they would no longer be our sponsor. We receive emails suggesting we reconsider editorial decisions regularly. We do not act on them.
When we make an error, we correct it. The correction is published in the same position of prominence as the original. We acknowledge this is a standard we have not always met, and note that acknowledging it is at least a start.
The Transcript protects confidential sources. The majority of our sources are on the record, named, and contactable, because we find this produces more reliable information than the alternative.