Write for us

NewsFoxes takes contributions from outside the newsroom. This page says what we accept, how it is labelled once published, and what we will not run.

Read it before writing to us, because most of what arrives is turned down for one of the reasons listed further down rather than for the quality of the writing. A contribution that fits this edition looks like the reports already on it: a subject one of the desks in the menu covers, a claim that can be checked against something a reader can open, and a length set by the subject rather than by a word target.

What we take

• Reporting or analysis in the subjects this edition already covers: politics, business, technology, sport, culture.
• Reference guides for Explained — a question a reader actually types, answered in full, with sources.
• Text in a language other than English, if the subject earns it. It will be published in the language it arrived in.

How it is labelled

A contribution is published under its author’s name, with a plate on the page saying it was filed from outside the newsroom, and it is listed in International rather than in the newsroom’s own desks. We do not edit outbound links inside a contribution, and we do not present it as our reporting.

What we will not run

• Text whose only purpose is a link. If the piece stops making sense without the link, it is an advertisement, and the standards page says where advertising goes on this site.
• Anything copied from another publication, or filed on behalf of someone who is not named.
• Medical, legal or financial instruction presented as advice.

How to send it

Send the finished text and your sources to [email protected]. Say who you are and who, if anyone, is paying for the piece — that answer decides whether we can publish it, and a wrong answer is the one thing that gets a contributor blocked for good.

Send the piece in the body of the message or as plain text; formatting is rebuilt in our own layout in any case, so a styled document saves nobody any time. If the piece needs a photograph, say who took it and under what licence it may be published, and send the file rather than a link to a page that holds it. We will not publish an image whose rights we cannot establish, and a report can run without one.

We do not pay for contributions, and we do not charge for publishing one. If someone else is paying for the piece to exist, it is a paid placement, not a contribution, and the standards page says how those are handled and marked. An author keeps the right to their own text and may publish it elsewhere afterwards; what we ask is that the version here stays at its address, because links to it from other sites should not break.