This page is not an internal regulation we keep in a drawer, but a public commitment we make before you, and you have the right to hold us to it in every piece we publish.
In a country where the authorities block news websites by decisions they do not announce, and manage information the way they manage security files, good intentions are not enough to earn a reader’s trust. Trust is built through method: how we choose our stories, how we verify them, whom we ask, and what we do when we make a mistake. Here we explain all of that without evasion.
Why “the third angle”?
Public debate in Egypt is often reduced to two angles: an official narrative, and its mirror image. Between the two angles, what actually happened is lost. We chose our name because we stand in a third place, one not made by siding with a party, but made by documented facts, documents, data and the testimony of the people who lived the event, presented without loyalty to any political, economic, religious or ideological interest.
We work to fill part of the gap left by the continuing restrictions on independent journalism in Egypt. We investigate violations and their roots, we follow public money and those who manage it, we monitor corruption, abuse of power and impunity, and we open space for those whose voices do not reach the media: workers, detainees and their families, women, minorities, refugees, residents of areas threatened with demolition, and everyone who pays the price of decisions on which no one consulted them.
This policy applies to everything issued under the name Zawia3: the website in its Arabic and English editions, the newsletter, the app, our accounts on social media platforms, and the pieces we publish in partnership with other organisations. We apply to a short post the same standard of accuracy we apply to a five-thousand-word investigation, because the reader does not measure a piece by its length, but either believes the information or does not.
Independence that cannot be bought or imposed
We serve the reader alone. We take no direction from any government, party, security agency, company, religious institution or supporting body. A strict wall separates our editorial decisions from our sources of funding: what we cover, whom we interview, what we publish, when we publish it and what we correct are decisions taken by the editorial board alone, and responsibility for them ends with the Editor-in-Chief or whoever deputises for them.
We accept institutional support because independent journalism needs it to survive, but we accept it only if it is free of any condition that touches our editorial line. No supporting body has the right to see a piece before publication, to steer our coverage towards a subject or away from it, to know the publication dates of our sensitive investigations, or to link its support to the content of what we publish. Support agreements define the volume of work, its formats and its general areas; the choice of each story, its angle, its sources and its conclusions is our decision alone. Before accepting any support, we verify that the supporting body respects press freedom and the public’s right of access to information.
We show no piece to any government body before publication, we accept no arrangement that trades the timing of publication for lenient coverage, and we enter into no undisclosed cooperation with any security or intelligence agency of any state. When a request, a threat or an inducement targets our content, we document it and treat it as an attack on press freedom.
We display no commercial advertising, and we publish no paid or commercially sponsored content. When we work with a partner news organisation on a joint investigation, we govern the relationship with a written agreement that preserves the standards of both parties, and we apply to the edition that carries our name the stricter of the two standards.
Impartiality as we understand it
For us, impartiality is a working rule, not a slogan. We support no party, candidate or movement, we run no campaigns for or against anyone, and we open space for conflicting political voices, including voices we disagree with. But impartiality does not mean standing at an equal distance from truth and lies, from the documented and the fabricated, or from the perpetrator and the victim of an established violation. Impartiality means that the evidence leads us to our conclusions, and that we apply the same rules to everyone.
We therefore give each point of view the weight the evidence warrants, and we do not manufacture a false balance between a documented fact and its denial. We verify the account of the opposition figure, the activist and the victim with the same tools we use to verify the account of the official and the institution; sympathy with a cause is no substitute for verifying a claim, and an institution’s hostility towards us does not justify leniency in an allegation directed at it.
We write news and investigations in precise, verifiable language, free of incitement and sensationalism. We do not label people or pass judgements; we narrate actions and leave the reader to judge. Contested characterisations do not appear in our own voice unless they meet documented criteria; otherwise we report them attributed to whoever said them. There is no place in our news pieces for loaded adjectives, sarcasm or passing remarks that reveal the writer’s position.
We seek diversity of voices among our sources: women and men, from Upper Egypt and the Delta, the cities and the peripheries, and from different generations, classes and affiliations. We do not publish preaching or sectarian discourse, and we address religious affairs when they relate to rights, freedoms and public life. In election seasons, we cover the process, the candidates and the conditions of voting with the same degree of scrutiny, we endorse no candidate or list, and we amplify neither claims of fraud nor claims of integrity before we have verified them.
Verification is the heart of the profession
We verify every piece of information before publishing it. For us, verification does not mean assuming that the evidence exists, but examining it ourselves; it means the evidence is of a type and strength that an experienced, sceptical journalist would accept, and that we document the steps of the examination in a verification file that accompanies every piece. Accuracy always comes before speed: a story we publish late is still a story, while a story we publish wrong wounds readers’ trust in everything we will write after it.
We assign no editorial work to any colleague, whether reporter, editor, translator or social media officer, before they have passed our mandatory training in verifying information. There is no exception to this rule, however urgent the story.
Contested or consequential information requires at least two independent sources, neither of which draws on the other, and which share no interest in its being believed. A single source suffices when it is the definitive origin of the information, such as a document whose authenticity we have verified or an official register, and we document why we relied on it alone. The heavier an allegation weighs on a person’s reputation, liberty or safety, the higher the level of evidence we require.
We examine documents before relying on them: we trace their origin, we compare their format, stamps, reference numbers, signatures and metadata with known genuine examples, we match their content against independent facts, and we ask the issuing body when doing so does not expose our sources to danger. A document whose authenticity we cannot establish is one we do not build on, however tempting its content appears.
We trace every number back to its original source, and we ask about its definition: what exactly it measures, who produced it, for what period, and what it excludes. We recalculate percentages and derived figures, and we distinguish between nominal and real values in economic coverage. We verify circulating images and videos through reverse search, geolocation using satellite imagery and landmarks, chronolocation using shadows and weather, and examination of metadata, and we state in the accompanying caption what we have verified and what rests on the account of whoever posted it.
We record interviews when the source’s safety and consent allow, and we keep accurate notes when they do not. We quote exactly as it was said, and we indicate when a quotation is translated. We place a direct link to every piece of information we draw from a published source, so that the reader can verify it for themselves.
Before publication, every piece passes through four stages: the journalist reviews the verification checklist; then the section head edits it and examines its sources line by line; then a colleague who did not write it checks it if it is an investigation or a sensitive piece; then it undergoes legal and security review when its level of risk requires. No one approves the publication of a piece they wrote themselves. The headline, the subheading and the social media post must rest on what is in the body: a headline may arouse curiosity, but it has no right to say what the piece has not proven, or to resort to “fiery” phrases.
We do not publish rumours as facts, and we do not recycle anonymous claims under phrases such as “activists are circulating” or “reports indicate”. When an unconfirmed claim is news in itself, such as a public accusation made by an official, we report that it was made, we state clearly that it has not been proven, and we present what our own verification found. In fast-moving events, we publish only what is confirmed at the moment of publication, we describe the coverage as ongoing, we date every update, and we do not fill the gaps with speculation.
Sources: disclosure is the rule, protection is a duty
The rule is that we name our sources and their positions, because the reader deserves to know who is speaking to them. We agree explicitly with a source, before they give their information, on how it will be attributed: by name, by a job description without a name, or for background only without publication.
We do not grant anonymity automatically. We grant it when the information is important and cannot be obtained on the record, when the source has a serious reason to fear professional, legal or physical harm, when the journalist knows the source’s identity and has assessed their credibility and motives, and when a responsible editor approves. We know that revealing an identity in the Egyptian context can mean prison, so we apply this standard realistically, but we do not allow it to become a back door for passing off what cannot be verified.
We describe an anonymous source truthfully and as specifically as safety allows, and we explain the basis of their knowledge: “a person who attended the meeting”, not “a source”. We do not invent composite sources, we do not turn one source into “sources”, and we do not inflate a source’s position to strengthen the story. We do not publish what an anonymous source says unless it is corroborated by independent evidence or by a document whose authenticity we have verified.
When we promise a source to protect their identity, our promise becomes an absolute institutional commitment that does not end when the story ends or when the journalist leaves. We reveal their identity to no supporting body, partner, platform or authority, and we withdraw the story before we betray a source.
With our sources we use secure communication and storage tools, we keep as little data that points to them as possible, and we remove metadata from documents and images before publishing them. We do not pay for information, we do not obtain it through coercion or deception, and we promise no source any particular outcome of the coverage. To sources unaccustomed to dealing with the media, such as the families of detainees, workers and refugees, we explain in simple language what publication means and what may follow from it, before we begin the interview.
We receive leaks and documents that concern the public interest, we verify their authenticity before using them, we weigh the motives of whoever leaked them without excluding authentic material because of those motives, and we remove from them personal data unrelated to the public interest. We do not request hacking or theft, nor pay for them. If material of unlawful origin reaches us without our requesting it, we publish it only after verifying it and making sure that an overriding public interest justifies its publication, and that we are not a tool in a disinformation campaign.
The right of reply: we try no one in absentia
We contact the parties we cover to request their response before publication, and we state in the piece if they declined to respond. This rule binds us in every piece that attributes wrongdoing, negligence or misconduct to a person, company or institution. We do not see it merely as a courtesy to the other party, but also as a verification tool: the response of the party concerned often corrects the story, sharpens it or places it in context.
By a genuine opportunity to reply, we mean that we make contact through channels likely to reach the party concerned, that we document every attempt, and that we send a written summary of the specific allegations the piece will contain, in enough detail to allow a response without revealing our sources. We give a reasonable deadline suited to the complexity of the allegations: at least five working days for investigations, and at least forty-eight hours for urgent news, unless the Editor-in-Chief documents a reason that requires a shorter deadline. We accept the response in writing or in a recorded interview.
We present a substantive response fairly and prominently, and we do not bury it at the end of the piece or truncate it in a way that distorts its meaning. If the response reaches us after publication, we add it to the piece or publish it with appropriate prominence. In rare cases, advance notice may expose our sources or our journalists to danger, or open the door to the destruction of evidence; the Editor-in-Chief may then adjust the timing or the level of detail of the contact and document the reasons, but we contact the party concerned at the earliest moment safety allows. This exception changes when and how we request a response; it never cancels the right of reply.
We present people’s statements and positions accurately and in context: we do not edit a quotation in a way that changes its meaning, we do not use omission to manufacture a statement that was not made, and we do not place two facts side by side to imply what the evidence does not prove.
News is one thing, opinion is another
Readers have the right always to know what they are reading. We therefore distinguish clearly between news, investigation, analysis, opinion, interview and explanatory pieces, and we reflect this classification in the piece itself and in the section where we publish it.
News and investigations carry neither the writer’s opinion nor the position of Zawia3; their conclusions are the conclusions of the evidence. Analysis interprets documented facts and carries its writer’s name; it may draw conclusions, but it does not become a campaign. Opinion articles are a clearly marked space for argument and position, in which we publish diverse points of view over time, including opinions the editorial team does not share, and in which we reserve a place for young writers and new voices. Opinion articles express their writers, not Zawia3, but we check every fact they present; opinion protects the conclusion and the argument, not false information. In no type of content do we publish speech that incites violence or discrimination or strips anyone of their humanity.
We choose our interview guests according to what they add to public debate, not according to whether they agree or disagree with us. We do not show the questions to a guest for them to edit, we neither receive nor pay money for an interview, and we review with a guest only the accuracy of their recorded words, and only if we have agreed to do so in advance.
Zawia3, in its institutional capacity, takes public positions only on issues of press freedom, the safety of journalists and the right of access to information, and announces them in clear institutional statements, not within news pieces.
How we investigate: the hypothesis is a question, not a verdict
Investigative reporting heads our priorities, followed by in-depth analysis and then interviews. Every investigation begins with a written memo that sets out the hypothesis, the public interest, the evidence needed to prove or refute it, an initial map of sources, an assessment of legal, physical, digital and psychological risks, and a realistic timeline. We treat the hypothesis as a question we test, not a conclusion we decorate: if the evidence refutes our hypothesis we complete the work, and we publish the result when its refutation is itself important to the reader.
We link every finding in an investigation to its evidence in an organised evidence log, and we present the draft to our colleagues in the editorial meeting so that they attack its weakest links: alternative explanations, absent voices, exaggeration in the language, and the distance between what was proven and what was written. The final text says only what the evidence proves; if we describe a practice as “systematic” or “widespread”, it is because we have documented criteria for doing so, and if the evidence raises suspicion without settling it, we say exactly that, or we postpone publication.
We resort to undercover work or to recording without the other party’s knowledge only as an exception: when the information is of serious public interest, when there is no reasonable way to obtain it openly, with the least possible deception, with prior written approval from the Editor-in-Chief, and with disclosure in the piece of the method and the reason for it. We refuse to entrap people or to push them into conduct they would not otherwise have engaged in. We investigate conduct, policies and institutions, not anyone’s private life beyond what relates to their public role, and we wage no campaigns of attrition against individuals.
Privacy and the public interest
Every person, officials included, has a private space that we enter only when a specific public interest requires it, and only to the extent it requires. By the public interest we mean exposing crime, corruption and serious wrongdoing; protecting public health, safety and the environment; exposing the abuse of power, office and public money; exposing the failure of institutions or their misleading of the people; and enabling society to hold those who govern it to account, including in elections. Curiosity, sensationalism and the wish to embarrass someone are not the public interest.
Before we publish a name, an image, an address or details of a person’s health, family, finances or correspondence, we ask three questions and document the answers: Is there a genuine public interest? Is this intrusion necessary to serve it? Is it the least intrusion that achieves it? The space of privacy narrows for officials and public figures in matters related to their roles and their use of power, and remains broad for ordinary individuals. No one loses their privacy merely because they were present in a public place, and the children of public figures are ordinary individuals.
We do not publish identity numbers, addresses, phone numbers, financial accounts or health data unless they are indispensable to the public interest, and we withhold them otherwise. As for how we handle the data of our readers and newsletter subscribers, we explain it in detail in our Privacy Policy.
When the story is about the most vulnerable
We often write about people who pay a heavy price merely for speaking: children, survivors of sexual violence, victims of torture and their families, detainees and their relatives, refugees and displaced people, and the bereaved at the moment of loss. With them, we begin an interview only after genuine informed consent: we explain who we are, what we are writing about, how we will use the words and images, what the options for concealing identity are, what the possible risks are, and that they have the right to withdraw before publication. Consent given under pressure, exhaustion or misunderstanding is not consent.
We do not reveal a child’s identity without the consent of their guardian in addition to the consent of the child themselves, and the editor has the right to prevent publication even with consent if they consider it harmful to the child’s interest. We do not reveal the identity of a survivor of sexual violence without explicit, informed and documented consent; we leave them in control of the pace and place of the conversation, we do not push them to relive details beyond what the story needs, and we publish no details of the assault that are unnecessary.
We protect the identity of victims of detention and torture and their families when disclosure exposes them to reprisal, we corroborate their testimonies with medical, legal and documentary evidence whenever possible, and we make sure that a family speaking despite the danger is aware of that danger. We do not reveal the faces, names, locations and routes of refugees in ways that might expose them to authorities, smugglers or the regimes they fled, and we reject discourse that treats them as a featureless mass.
We cover protests, and with them the way they are dealt with, and we blur the faces of participants in high-risk contexts unless they agree to appear. We do not publish images of death and grave injury unless they carry documentary value that no other image can replace, with a clear warning before them, and we never use them to attract engagement. When we write about suicide, we avoid details of the method and the place and simplistic explanations, and we take the families of the victims into consideration. We do not relay the statements or propaganda of violent groups except to the extent necessary to understand the story.
Images, data and translation
A news photograph depicts reality as it is. We allow minor adjustments to lighting, contrast and colour, cropping that does not change the meaning, and the blurring that safety requires. Adding or removing elements, compositing images or re-enacting events in news images is prohibited. We attach to every image and clip an accurate caption stating what we see, where and when, and we make clear when an image is from the archive, an illustration or a screenshot. In charts we use honest axes and proportionate scales, and we state on them the source of the data and its date.
When we build a story on data analysis, we publish a methodological note explaining the data sources and their dates, the processing we applied to them, and the limits of the analysis and its possible sources of error, and a second colleague reproduces the results before publication. We distinguish between correlation and causation, and we do not publish an analysis whose data we are not allowed to examine.
The Arabic text is the reference for our original pieces, and the English edition is a faithful translation of it, not a new story: in translation, information does not become stronger or weaker or attributed to a different source. A second reader fluent in both languages reviews the translation, and we publish any correction in both languages at the same time.
Why do some of our pieces carry the byline “Zawia3”?
Our journalists inside Egypt work in one of the most dangerous environments for journalism in the world. We therefore publish some pieces under the name Zawia3 instead of their writer’s name, or under a pseudonym approved by the Editor-in-Chief. This institutional byline is a protective measure, not a way to evade responsibility: every piece that carries the organisation’s name has a writer known internally, a responsible editor and a complete verification file.
We give the byline to whoever actually did the work, and we credit those who contributed to gathering the information. We do not force any journalist to put their name on a piece they believe breaches this policy.
When we make mistakes
If we discover an error in a published piece, or a reader or a party concerned alerts us to it, we review it and correct it in the piece itself, and we add at its end a dated correction note explaining what changed. We do not alter any substantive information in a published piece without indicating it, and we distinguish between a correction that changes information and a language edit that does not touch the substance. We see correction as a strength of the organisation, and we regard concealing an error as a serious breach of this policy.
We choose the instrument according to the nature of the error: a correction when the information is wrong, a clarification when the wording is accurate but ambiguous or incomplete, and an update when new facts emerge, which we add with their date without concealing what the piece originally said. If the core of a piece collapses, we withdraw it and leave in its place a note explaining the reason; the note, not silent deletion, is the record. We also correct the error on the social media platforms where we published it, and we inform our partners if they have republished the piece.
We do not delete accurate journalism because the person we write about was annoyed by it. We resort to deleting an accurate piece or concealing names in it only as an exception, when keeping it would expose a person’s life to serious danger or when the law requires it; the Editor-in-Chief decides this and documents it, and we leave an explanatory note whenever possible.
To request a correction, exercise the right of reply or submit an editorial complaint, write to us at info@zawia3.com with the link to the piece. We acknowledge receipt of your message within five working days, reply in detail within twenty working days, and tell you of a new date if the case needs longer.
A complaint is reviewed by an editor who did not take part in preparing the piece whenever the size of the team allows, and we record every correction so that we review our mistakes periodically and learn from them.
The integrity of our journalists
No journalist covers an issue in which they, or their family, have a personal, financial or organisational interest, and no journalist allows an outside relationship to influence their work or to appear to influence it. Every journalist discloses to their editor any interest, kinship or previous work with the parties to the story, or any party affiliation, and we then assign the piece to someone else, or disclose the conflict to the reader when that is not possible and the conflict can be managed.
Our journalists accept no gifts, money, hospitality or favours from sources or parties concerned, apart from small courtesies such as a cup of coffee during work, and they report any attempted bribery. Members of the editorial team hold no positions in parties or election campaigns and do not declare support for them, and any paid outside work requires prior approval. On social media, our journalists declare no party support, publish nothing they could not publish in Zawia3, and correct their mistakes publicly.
Plagiarism, meaning presenting the words, reports, images, data or ideas of others as our own, is absolutely prohibited. When we build on a report published by another outlet, we name it and link to it, and we verify the facts ourselves before repeating them in our own voice. We respect intellectual property rights, so we use no images, clips or graphics belonging to others except under a licence, permission or documented legal exception, crediting their owners. Fabrication, plagiarism and betraying a source are breaches that end the perpetrator’s relationship with Zawia3.
For colleagues who wish to write with us
We welcome pitches from freelance journalists, researchers and writers, and this policy applies in full to everyone who works with us on commission. Before their first commission, every colleague passes our mandatory verification training.
We are interested first and foremost in investigations, then in in-depth analysis, then in interviews that add something new to public debate, in politics, the economy, rights and freedoms, society, the environment and culture. We rely on long-form narrative grounded in investigation and analysis, so a written report is no shorter than one thousand two hundred words except in a rare and justified exception.
We publish no information without its source, we require a direct link for every piece of information taken from a published source, and we prefer referring to what we have previously published on the same subject. The headline must be professional and journalistic, and must not carry a meaning absent from the body.
Our colleagues have the right to work with other media outlets, but we ask that they not publish a similar story elsewhere before it is published with us. We agree in advance and in writing on the fee for the piece and its deadlines, and we do not assign a freelance colleague a task that requires a risk we would not accept for our own team. To send your pitch, write to us at info@zawia3.com.
About this policy
This page is a summary of the internal editorial policy that binds everyone who produces content for Zawia3, including journalists, editors, translators, photographers and social media officers, and we regard accepting a commission as accepting it. We drew its standards from the Global Charter of Ethics for Journalists issued by the International Federation of Journalists, the Munich Declaration of the Duties and Rights of Journalists, and the standards of the Journalism Trust Initiative.
We review this policy at least once a year, and immediately after any serious editorial error, and we announce the date of every update at the top of this page.
If you believe we have breached what is on this page, tell us.
We read every message, and we treat every serious remark as an opportunity to become more accurate.
