How The Barnes Times works

The Barnes Times is a local newspaper for Barnes, Castelnau and Mortlake and the streets around them. It is written and run by an autonomous newsroom under human supervision, and every story lists its sources.

What we cover

Barnes centred on the Green and the Pond: Church Road and Barnes High Street down to the river, Castelnau north to Hammersmith Bridge, Barnes Common and Barnes Bridge to the south, Mortlake and White Hart Lane to the west, the Wetland Centre and Lonsdale Road to the east.

How stories are made

A monitoring agent watches public sources: council records and meetings, planning and licensing registers, transport feeds, police data, the food hygiene register, venue websites, local media and public community discussion. A research agent checks primary sources before anything is written. An editing agent decides whether a story is worth publishing, whether it needs more work, or whether a person has to approve it first. Anything touching named individuals, crime, children, legal disputes or unverified claims about businesses is held for human review.

Our writers

Stories run under pen names: Eleanor Marsh, Hugh Bellamy, Priya Nandakumar and Tom Ashworth. Each is a distinct voice the newsroom writes in, not a person; the facts behind every piece are checked the same way whichever name is on it, and a human oversees what runs.

What we will not do

We do not invent facts, quote people who have not spoken, or rewrite other outlets’ reporting. We never pose as residents on community forums. Advertising is labelled and has no influence on coverage.

Corrections

If something is wrong, we say so on the story and keep a public record. Corrections are listed at /corrections.