Editorial standards

Who writes the Wire

The Wire is written by software and edited by one person. Every two hours between 08:00 and 23:00, a program reads the sources listed on The sources and keeps a copy of anything new. A language model writes each item from that copy. A second reading compares the item with the copy and sends back anything the copy does not support, to be rewritten. Before an item is published, a program checks that every name, number and date in it appears in the source; an item that fails is not published, and a short line with a link to the source stands in its place. The editor, named on About, reads what is published and answers for it.

Every item goes through the same steps under the same written rules. What an item says is set by its source and by those rules. The editor has the last word on what is published and what is corrected.

Nobody from the Wire was there. Everything in an item comes from a source, and the source is linked at the end. The Wire reports and does not comment, and where a source leaves a question open, the Wire leaves it open too.

What it publishes

Notices from the authorities, in full

Sysselmesteren (the Governor of Svalbard), Longyearbyen lokalstyre (the local council) and the Norwegian government publish notices and decisions that carry no copyright under Norwegian law (åndsverkloven, section 14). The Wire translates them whole, keeping the authority's numbers, names, dates and order.

Newspaper articles, retold

Articles from local and regional publishers are retold in the Wire's own words, with the publisher named and linked. When an article is behind a paywall, the Wire reads only what the publisher shows everyone, writes a short brief from it and sends the reader to the publisher for the rest.

The foreign press, headline and link

Articles about Svalbard in papers abroad appear as a headline, the paper's name, the date and a link. Many of those papers do not allow their text to be given to a language model, so the Wire does not give it.

What stays out

• The names of private people in connection with a death, an accident, an illness, a crime or a court case. Officials acting in their role are named.
• Obituaries, birthdays, weddings and other personal announcements.
• Opinion: editorials, columns, letters and reviews.
• Advertising, sponsored content, competitions and promotion of venues, products or tours.
• Posts on social media, except those on the local council's own page.
• Anything the source says too little about to write from without guessing.

A death is reported only when the Governor, the police, the hospital, the employer or the family has confirmed it, and the item says who did. An accident or an injury may also be reported from an established news outlet, named in the first sentence. A social media post on its own is never enough.

Sources and quotes

Every fact in the Wire can be traced to a stored copy of its source. Routine facts that come straight from the body responsible, such as a Governor notice, a flight schedule or a council decision, are stated plainly. Anything disputed, unconfirmed or damaging to a named person or business is attributed, and needs two independent sources; with only one, the source is named in the first sentence.

Quotes are short and exact, and marked when they are translated. Nobody is called guilty until a court, or the person, has said so.

Dates

Each item shows the date its source published it. Items name the day instead of saying yesterday or today, because they stay online long after those words stop being true.

Figures that change by the hour, on the front page and in the tours catalogue, show when they were checked and leave the page once they are too old to trust: spaces on a tour after two hours, weather and ice notices after three, the day's departures after six, prices after a week and opening hours after a month.

Pictures

Pictures come from the Wire's own camera and from public collections such as Wikimedia Commons and the National Library of Norway, under free licences only. The caption under each one names who made it, its licence and where it came from.

A picture runs only when it shows what the story is about, or the place where it happened. When there is no such picture, the story runs without one. News pictures show no recognisable people. A made picture is labelled as an illustration, and a news story never uses one of the event it reports. Every picture gets the same colour grade; nothing in it is added, removed or retouched without the credit saying "edited".

Corrections

Mistakes are corrected in the open. When a number, a date, a name or a quote in an item is wrong, or a word changes what it means, the item is fixed and a dated line is added at its end: "Correction, 25 October 2026: an earlier version gave the closing time as 16:00. It is 18:00." If the error was the source's, the line says so. The correction goes everywhere the Wire printed the item.

When two sources disagree and the difference cannot be explained, the item waits. If it is already published, it gives both versions and who said each, or comes down until the matter is settled. An item that turns out to be wrong at its core is marked Withdrawn, with the date and the reason, and stays in the archive. Nothing is deleted.

Typos and broken links are fixed without a note.

Reporting an error

Write to editor@svalbardwire.com, whether you found a mistake or are named in an item. The editor checks the report against the stored copy and the source and replies by email. Comments on the Wire's Facebook page are read for the same reason, but not answered there.

What the Wire owes its sources

The program that reads the sources gives its name, SvalbardWire, and the editor's address, and keeps to each site's rules for automated readers. It never goes behind a paywall. The copies it keeps are for checking and are never published or passed on. Where a site's terms are unclear, the Wire asks first and reads only the list of new articles until it has an answer. A publisher who asks to be left out is removed the same day.

Data and books

The weather comes from MET Norway (the Norwegian Meteorological Institute) through Yr, avalanche danger from Varsom, run by NVE, flights from Avinor, ship calls from Port Longyear, and the sun's times from the NOAA solar calculation. The tours are those Visit Svalbard lists, with prices and departures from the operators' own booking systems. Each is used on its owner's terms and credited where it appears.

History articles name the books and papers they draw on. Facts from works still in copyright are retold; only works in the public domain are quoted. A translation of a Store norske leksikon article carries its authors' names and its licence (CC BY-SA). Book lists follow the catalogue of the National Library of Norway.