Editorial standards

Prime Journal exists for one reader: a capable adult over 50 who has been talked down to by every brand that ever noticed her age. Everything below follows from taking her seriously.

What we cover, and why

Money, travel, home, garden, health, family, and style, in that order of how often they keep readers up at night. We choose subjects by asking what a reader in that situation actually feels and needs, not by what is easiest to write. Every article starts from a feeling a reader recognises and ends with something she can do.

How an article is made

Our articles are produced with the help of writing tools, under an editorial brief that sets the reader, the voice, the structure, and the rules below. Each draft then goes through a separate editorial check against a fixed checklist: the count in the headline must match the list, every claim to a right or benefit must be well established, no figure may be stated more precisely than we can support, no person, study, or quote may be invented, and every outside link must lead to a page that exists. Drafts that fail are rewritten before they are published. We say this plainly because we think readers deserve to know how what they read was made.

Sources

Where an article rests on rules or figures, it links to the source, most often an official one: a government agency, a program's own site, a statute. The full list appears at the foot of the article under “Sources cited,” and the byline shows how many there are. We describe a source as cited, not verified, and we encourage you to read it yourself before acting on it.

Pictures

The pictures in our articles are illustrations created with image tools to show the situation being described. They do not depict real people, real homes, or real events, and any resemblance is coincidental. We choose an everyday, unpolished look on purpose, because our readers' lives are not catalogues.

What we won't do

• Call readers “seniors,” imply decline, or write about them as a problem for their children to manage.
• State a figure to the dollar or the decimal when we only know it roughly.
• Tell a reader to ask for a discount, a benefit, or a right that may not exist. A reader refused in public will not return, and she would be right.
• Invent a person, a quote, a study, or a statistic.
• Let an advertiser or an affiliate program decide what we cover or what we say about it. See our affiliate disclosure.

Independence and money

Prime Journal is paid for by advertising on the page and, in some articles, by commissions on links. Neither affects what an article says. Advertisements are labelled. Articles that contain commission links say so at the top.

Corrections

We correct errors quickly and we note the correction on the article. Our corrections policy explains how to report one.

Contact

Suggestions, complaints, and story ideas are welcome through the contact page.