Editorial Standards

Trend News Agency has operated as a multilingual news provider from the South Caucasus, Caspian region and Central Asia since 1995. Our work is read in Azerbaijani, English, Russian, Turkish and Persian by audiences around the world, and we hold our reporting to standards that reflect that responsibility.

This page sets out the editorial principles that guide every news service we publish — from breaking news on Trend.az and our regional desks to analytical commentary, sectoral bulletins on energy, transport and finance, and the work of the Baku International Policy and Security Network (BIPSN), our in-house think tank.

Our principles

Accuracy. Getting the facts right is the foundation of everything we publish. Reporters and editors verify information before it appears under the Trend masthead, and when an error reaches publication despite that process, we correct it openly. See our Corrections Policy for details.

Independence. Our newsroom operates independently of the agency's commercial, advertising and partnership departments. Editorial decisions about what we cover, how we cover it and what we publish are made by editors and journalists. They are not for sale and they are not subject to outside instruction.

Impartiality. We strive to present information without taking sides on contested public issues. Where multiple perspectives exist on a story, we aim to reflect them fairly, give those criticised a meaningful opportunity to respond, and distinguish clearly between reporting, analysis and opinion.

Fairness and respect. We treat the people we write about and the audience we write for with respect. We avoid sensationalism, do not publish material designed to incite hatred against any group, and apply particular care when reporting on minors, victims of violence and other vulnerable subjects.

Sourcing and verification

Every claim of fact in a Trend story rests on identifiable sources — official statements, on-the-record interviews, original documents, on-site reporting or material from other credible news organisations. Where information cannot be verified to our satisfaction, we either delay publication or make the limits of what we know explicit to the reader.

We attribute information to its source. When we quote another news outlet, we name it. When we use a press release or an official statement, we say so. When we cite social media, we identify the account and indicate whether the post has been independently verified.

Unnamed sources

We prefer named, on-the-record sources. Where a source can only speak on condition of anonymity — for example, because of professional or personal risk — the decision to grant that anonymity is made by an editor, not by the reporter alone. We tell readers what we can about why the source is not named (for instance, "a senior official who was not authorised to speak publicly") so they can judge the information accordingly.

Authorship and bylines

News stories carry the name of the journalist responsible for them, together with a publication date and a dateline indicating where the reporting was filed from. Agency-wide reports compiled from multiple contributors are bylined "Trend News Agency". Editorial leadership of each language service and the senior masthead are listed on our Contacts page.

Sponsored and partner content

Material paid for by, or produced in cooperation with, a third party is clearly labelled — typically as "Sponsored", "Partner content" or with an equivalent disclosure at the top of the item. Sponsored content does not influence and is not produced by the editorial newsroom, and is held to the same factual and legal standards as our editorial work.

Use of artificial intelligence

Reporting, sourcing, interviewing and editorial judgment at Trend are performed by people. Where editorial teams use AI tools for limited support tasks — for example, transcribing audio, translating between our five languages, or assisting with technical formatting — a human editor reviews the output before publication, and final responsibility for accuracy rests with the journalists and editors named on the piece.

Conflicts of interest

Journalists and editors at Trend disclose to the editorial leadership any financial, personal or professional relationship that could reasonably be seen to affect their coverage of a story, and recuse themselves where necessary. The same standard applies to outside writing, speaking engagements and other professional activity.

Corrections and clarifications

When we get something wrong, we correct it as quickly as possible and mark the correction visibly on the affected story. The full procedure — including how to alert us to an error — is set out in our Corrections Policy.

Affiliations

Trend is a member of the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA), the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and the News Agency World Congress (NAWC), and applies the professional standards expected of those bodies.

Contact

Questions about these standards can be sent to [email protected]. To submit a correction, see the Corrections Policy.