Editorial standards and corrections

Sourcing

Every story names its primary source and, where the desk found it, the corroborating coverage, in a sources block at the end of the piece with links to the originals. The desk fetches each source itself before writing, and keeps a copy of the material every story was checked against. General background about how the business works is written as background, without figures.

The figure rule

Every number in a story, whether a rate, a percentage, an amount, a count or a date, must appear in the source material, written as the source wrote it. The desk does not calculate new figures from someone else's data: it does not work out changes, averages or conversions, and it does not round a figure into something tidier. When two figures should be compared, both are given as reported. Figures are attributed to the organisation that produced them, with the period and the comparison basis the source used.

The standards desk

Before publication every draft gets two checks. An editor reviews every specific against the source material: numbers, dates, named organisations, attributions and quotations. A figure audit then matches every number in the draft, headline and key facts included, against the numbers in that material. A sentence carrying a figure that cannot be matched is corrected or cut. A note at the foot of each story says that the check ran and how many figures were removed.

Opinion is labelled

Each story carries the desk's reading of the figures in a box headed The desk's read. It is the site's opinion and it adds no new figures. Directly after it, a box headed The caveat gives the strongest reason the figure could mislead: the sample, the season, the method, who commissioned the study, or what it leaves out. Analysis columns are marked as analysis and follow the same figure rule as news.

Illustrations

Every story is illustrated with an original drawing made at the picture desk, and the Illustrations Director approves each one before it runs against a shared picture-desk standard used across our titles: on the story, in the house style, and free of stray text, numbers, a logo, a real face or the AI ‘sparkle’ the image models add. A drawing that fails is redrawn. The drawings are illustrations, not data: they contain no charts or figures. The desk does not use stock photography or third-party images. No drawing depicts a real or identifiable person, and no named property is drawn as though it were a photograph of that property. The image policy in full is on the images and credits page.

Independence

Booked News is not affiliated with Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, Expedia or any platform, data vendor, property manager or software company. It accepts no payment for coverage. Any sponsored placement would be labelled as such on the page.

Not advice

Analysis on Booked News is not legal, tax or investment advice. Figures describe the period and the sample their source measured; rules, taxes and platform policies change by market and change often. Confirm them for your own market before you act.

Corrections

If a story contains an error, write to the data standards editor at the desk's inbox with the story's address and what is wrong. Corrections are reviewed against the source material on file; a substantive correction is made in the text and noted at the foot of the story with the date. Requests are acknowledged within five business days.

Tips

The desk reads every tip. Send data releases, reports, platform emails and registry figures to the tips inbox. Say whether you want to be named; the default is that you will not be.