News articles are written by the Madeira Journal News Desk. The byline on each story is the desk. The journal is responsible for what is published.
How a story is made
Software collects public headlines and official data, groups the same story across sources, and scores it. A draft is written only after the source articles have been read. The wording is ours: what happened, what it means for a visitor or a resident, and what to do. It links the sources. It does not copy the article, and it does not use the newspaper's photographs. A person approves a news draft before it is committed.
Automation
Official-data pages for IPMA weather warnings, trail status, fuel ceilings, and airport wind are published from the official file. Each one is labelled “Automated from official data” and links the source. They are not news articles, and they do not state a flight delay or a flight cancellation. A Morning Brief news draft is not published on its own. It waits for a yes from the desk chat, and the page is written only after the quality gate: a source link, a date taken from the source, the three sections, at most one short quote, and an image credit from the whitelist.
Images
A place photograph comes from Wikimedia Commons, or from Unsplash or Pexels when those API keys are set. The credit under the picture names the photographer and the licence. Policy stories, and any story where a safe photograph is not available, use our own azulejo illustration, labelled Illustration: Madeira Journal (AI-generated). That drawing is not a photograph of the event or of a person. We do not use newspaper photographs, social-media photographs, or NC and ND licences. Pixabay is not used on a political story. A recognisable private person is not shown on a negative story.
Corrections
If a fact is wrong, email hello@madeirajournal.com with the page address and the correction. The page is updated and the change is noted. We do not quietly leave a wrong price or a wrong date in place.
What we leave out
Minor crashes, obituaries, routine sport, and party politics with no practical effect are not articles. A march or other event that is already over, with nothing a reader can still do, stays a brief line unless it changes a price, a closure, or a plan on the island. We do not name private individuals in crime or accident stories, and we do not guess the cause.
Fuel prices
Weekly fuel ceilings quoted in a story come from the regional commerce office, on the official maximum-price page. That list is the official maximum. It is separate from a news story about how those prices compare with the mainland.