This page exists so that a reader never has to guess whether a paragraph was paid for. At the time of writing, no page on this site is sponsored and no advertising is carried. The rules below are set out in advance so that they cannot be written to fit a particular arrangement later.
The principle is simple. Money may pay for the chronicle to exist. It may not decide what the chronicle says, and it may not be invisible.
How support is labeled
Any page or passage produced under a commercial arrangement carries a label at the top, in the same type as the rest of the page, saying plainly that it is sponsored and naming the party that paid. The label is part of the page rather than a note in the footer, it stays there permanently, and it appears in the same place every time so that a regular reader learns where to look. Commercial links are marked as such in the underlying markup as well as in the visible text.
What sponsorship never touches
Sponsorship buys space, never a judgement. A sponsor does not see a page before it is published, does not approve or amend it, and has no say in the subjects the chronicle covers or in how a practice is described elsewhere on the site. No sponsored material is placed inside a documentary page, and no sponsored page is cited by an observed one as though it were independent reporting. Nothing sponsored enters the feed or the sitemaps under the guise of an ordinary article.
Declining support
Offers are declined when they require approval over the text, when they ask for a link inside an existing page, when they are contingent on a favourable verdict, or when they come from a party the chronicle would otherwise be reporting on. An offer that cannot be labeled openly is refused, on the ground that anything which has to be hidden from the reader is already the wrong arrangement.
The editorial line that any support has to respect is set out in the editorial policy, and partnership enquiries reach the desk through the contact page.