Editorial policy

Independence

Lanka Update is owned and edited by Sunil Gamini Jayalathge. It is not affiliated with any political party, candidate, government body or business group, and takes no funding from any of them. Editorial decisions are made in the newsroom and by nobody else.

Sourcing

We name our sources wherever we can. Where a source cannot be named — for instance because naming them would put them at risk — we say what kind of source it is and why they are not named. We do not attribute claims to “sources” that are in fact a single person.

When a story rests on a document, court filing, official statement or dataset, we say so and, where possible, link to it so you can read it yourself.

Verification

Before publication we check, as a minimum, that:

• each factual claim can be traced to a source we have actually seen or spoken to;
• names, titles, places, dates and figures are correct and consistently spelled;
• photographs show what the caption says they show, and are ours or licensed to us;
• anyone facing a significant accusation has been given a genuine opportunity to respond, and their response is included.

Where a claim is contested and we cannot resolve it, we say that it is contested rather than picking a side by omission.

What we do not publish

• Articles produced by copying another outlet's work, or generated automatically and published without a journalist checking them.
• Advertising or sponsored material dressed up as reporting. Commercial content, if we ever run any, is labelled as such.
• Rumour presented as fact, unverified viral claims, or content whose only purpose is to attract clicks.
• Material that identifies victims of sexual violence, or children involved in criminal proceedings.
• Hate speech, or content that incites violence against any ethnic, religious or other group.

Corrections

We correct errors of fact promptly and openly. Write to jayalathges1@gmail.com with the article URL and what you believe is wrong.

• A factual error is corrected in the article, and the article notes what was changed and when.
• A significant error — one that changes the meaning of the story — is flagged at the top of the article.
• We do not quietly delete stories to make an error disappear. If an article has to be withdrawn, we say that it was withdrawn and why.
• Typographical fixes that do not affect meaning are made without a note.

Every article shows its publication date, and edits are reflected in the article's last-modified date.

Right of reply

If you are the subject of an article and believe it is unfair or incomplete, contact us. We will consider a correction, a clarification, or publishing your response.

Language editions

The English and Sinhala editions are edited separately. An article appearing in one is not automatically translated into the other, and we do not publish machine-translated copy without a journalist reviewing it.

Funding and advertising

Lanka Update is funded by advertising, served mainly through Google AdSense. Advertisers have no influence over what we cover or how we cover it, they see no article before publication, and no advertiser can have an article altered or removed. Ad slots are visually separated from editorial content and labelled.

Questions

Anything about how we work: jayalathges1@gmail.com. See also about us and our terms of use.