Ownership & Funding

Why we publish this

You cannot fully judge a news source without knowing who owns it and who pays for it. Those two facts explain more about media behaviour than any mission statement, so we put ours on a permanent public page. This is a young publication, which makes the disclosure short; we would rather publish a short true page now than an impressive vague one.

Who owns INCLUDED NEWS

INCLUDED NEWS and includednews.com are owned and operated independently by the small editorial team that produces the site. There is no parent media group, no holding company with other interests to protect, no political party, government, religious organisation or advocacy group with any stake, and no outside investor holding equity or debt that could shape coverage. Nobody outside the team has any ownership interest, and no owner has business interests that our news coverage touches. If any of that ever changes, whether through investment, partnership or sale, this page will be updated before or immediately upon the change, and the site’s editorial independence terms will be stated as part of it.

Why we do not publish individual names

We are a small team publishing general news on the open internet, and small teams with public home addresses have learned what that can cost. We balance the two duties this way: personal names stay private, but everything that lets you judge our independence, the ownership structure, the funding sources, the standards, and a responsive named inbox, is public. The publication answers for its work as a publication, and support@includednews.com reaches the people accountable for it, including for questions about this page.

How the site is funded

INCLUDED NEWS is funded by two revenue streams, and only two:

• Advertising. Display advertising served by third party networks appears alongside our journalism. Advertisers buy space and audience, never coverage: they do not see stories before publication, do not know what we are working on, and cannot buy, alter or suppress a story at any price. Ads are visually distinct from editorial content, and any paid placement that resembles an article would be labeled as sponsored, unmissably.
• Affiliate links. Some product related articles, chiefly on our technology, gaming, auto, travel and lifestyle desks, may contain affiliate links, meaning we can earn a commission if you buy through them at no extra cost to you. Pages containing affiliate links carry a disclosure, and the editorial rule is absolute: recommendations are decided first, on merit, and monetised second, where possible. A product we would not recommend does not become recommendable because it pays a commission.

We currently take no government grants, no political funding, no undisclosed sponsorships and no payments for coverage. If we ever add a revenue stream, such as reader support, subscriptions or foundation grants, it will be listed here with the same candour before it influences a single page.

The wall between money and coverage

The commercial side of this site and the editorial side are separated by rules written down in our Editorial Standards, the short form of which is: editors decide coverage, and money has no vote. No advertiser or affiliate partner is entitled to notice of, influence over, or protection from our reporting. If a company that advertises here becomes news, it is covered exactly as it would be if it had never spent a cent with us, and the reporter covering it is under no obligation even to know it is an advertiser.

What financial pressure cannot buy

For the avoidance of any doubt, the following are not for sale at any price: story selection, story suppression, favourable framing, review scores, interview questions, headline wording, and removal of accurate published content. Threats to withdraw advertising over coverage will be resolved in favour of the coverage, every time. A news site that will not say this plainly has not decided it yet; we have.

Questions

If you believe any commercial relationship has influenced our coverage, or you want to know whether a company we covered has a commercial relationship with us, ask at support@includednews.com. Questions about this page are treated with the same priority as corrections, because a publication’s independence is a factual claim like any other, and we expect to be held to it.