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About Us

Letter from Audience & Content Director Helen Dalby

ChronicleLive, part of Reach plc, is one of England’s top 5 biggest regional news sites, with a monthly audience of around 4m unique browsers a month. Based in Newcastle, it’s a trusted and credible source of news, sport, information and entertainment across the North East of England.

The website feeds two daily newspapers - The Chronicle and the Journal - as well as the Sunday Sun, England’s best-selling regional Sunday.

We’ve been the region’s leading publishers since before the coronation of Queen Victoria. Our newspaper titles have reported on our triumphs and tragedies, our hopes and ambitions for almost two centuries.

Our digital brand, ChronicleLive, celebrated its 12th anniversary this year. Thanks to web, mobile and app, we’re now reaching more people, more often than at any point for decades.

We’ve built those audiences with responsible, trusted journalism underpinned by a clear set of brand values. We’re audience responsive, trustworthy and authentically North East. We don’t do clickbait, we don’t publish fake news and we remain fully accountable to our readership and industry code of practice.

Our mission is to be an essential part of people’s daily lives in the North East, providing a trusted and continuously updated source of news and information. We campaign for the greater good of the region, championing our successes, helping people to understand issues and holding our elected representatives and public bodies to account.

We make a real difference in our communities, running campaigns and events that support people and causes in the North East. These include our recent collaboration with other northern publishers for our Power Up the North campaign, as well as our long-running Invest in the North East campaign which aims to make the region a better place in which to live, work, study and do business.

The Chronicle Sunshine Fund - now an independent, registered charity based at our offices in Newcastle city centre - has raised over £2m to help disabled children in the region by providing vital equipment.

We also run a series of feel-good community events to showcase people and organisations that do special work in our region. These include Chronicle Champions, the North East Charity Awards and the North East Rural Awards.

We have the biggest editorial team in the region, with more than 80 employees based in Newcastle, and remain committed to providing exceptional standards of coverage. Our live blog provides vital updates throughout the day, while our newspapers bring the best of everything together in one place.

All our staff benefit from undertaking monthly training modules through our continuous learning programme. These include video, social media, SEO, how to engage and retain audiences, brand values and legal/ethical compliance. We also commit to developing trainee journalists and supporting them through a two-year qualification process respected across the industry. This helps us to recruit some of the most talented aspiring journalists in the UK.

We are delighted to be a launch partner of The Trust Project as we endeavour to make it simpler for readers of all ages and from all around the world to discover more about who we are and what we believe in.

As we head towards 200 years of publishing, we remain as relevant and influential now as ever before. We’re proud of our past and excited by our future.

How our journalists work

Ethics policy

The maintenance of high editorial standards is at the core of the ChronicleLive's business philosophy.

Reach plc, ChronicleLive's parent company, is a member of and is regulated by IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation.

Our journalists work according to The Editors’ Code of Practice, which sets the benchmark for ethical standards in journalism and is enforced by IPSO. On joining ChronicleLive, all editorial staff complete a training course in the Code and legal refresher training.

At ChronicleLive, we recognise that protecting the rights of the individual consistently comes into conflict with the public’s right to know. This means we have to make difficult judgements, sometimes quickly, which are impossible to get right all of the time. Regular bulletins and seminars give staff the best opportunity to learn from mistakes, whether our own or those of other parts of the media industry.

We are a launch partner of The Trust Project, an international initiative to make it easier for readers to find out more about the organisations and the people providing them with news, and to support quality journalism.

Verification and fact checking

We expect our staff to use their best endeavours to verify the stories being put forward for publication.

Unnamed sources

Journalists have an obligation under IPSO’s Editors’ Code of Practice to protect their sources, but we also have a duty to establish that the sources we use are reliable and that material has been appropriately obtained. Story provenance is ultimately the responsibility of the Editor.

When using unnamed sources, the company relies on the integrity, experience and professionalism of its staff.

Our awards and successes

ChronicleLive and our newspaper brands have been honoured by a series of awards and accolades over many years. We have a number of multiple award-winning journalists on our team. In recent years The Journal has been named Regional Newspaper of the Year, while ChronicleLive has been several times shortlisted for Regional Website of the Year and won the Digital Innovation category at the 2015 Newsawards. Our newsroom has generated much positive press in recent years, recognised for its high standards of journalism and digital transformation and we were named by the BBC as one of the most accurate sources of football transfer news across the UK.

Corrections Policy

If you believe a story we have published is inaccurate, please contact the editorial team. You can:

Once verified, we will correct the story on the website as soon as possible. Where appropriate, the fact a correction has been made will be noted on the story and/or on the corrections and clarifications page.

If you have an issue about how ChronicleLive or any of our print titles has written about you personally or has treated you and wish to make a formal complaint over a potential breach of the Editor's Code of Practice, please see Reach plc's Complaints Policy and Procedure.

You can also contact IPSO for advice.

Tell us what you think

There are many ways for you to get in touch with us to have your say.

Our People

Audience & Content Director: Helen Dalby helen.dalby@reachplc.com

Regional Head of Print: Matt McKenzie matt.mckenzie@reachplc.com

ChronicleLive Editor: Sophie Barley sophie.barley@reachplc.com

The Journal Editor: Graeme Whitfield graeme.whitfield@reachplc.com

Newcastle United Editor: Aaron Stokes aaron.stokes@reachplc.com

Football Publishing Editor: Stuart Jamieson stuart.jamieson@reachplc.com

Our Business

ChronicleLive, The Chronicle, The Journal and the Sunday Sun are published by ncjMedia, part of the Reach plc. Reach is Britain’s largest newspaper, magazine and digital publisher, with a print and online portfolio reaching 38.6million people every month. The award-winning Trinity Mirror publications stretch across England, Scotland and Wales, with more than 150 newspaper titles and more than 80 websites. These iconic brands sit at the heart of their communities, forming part of the fabric of everyday life for thousands of people across the UK. Find out which of our regional titles is nearest you, whether online or in print.

Reach plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange, and is part of the FTSE SmallCap Index.

ChronicleLive does not have a paywall and is available free to readers both on the web and as an app. As such, you are kindly asked to whitelist ChronicleLive if you are running an ad-blocker.

The Chronicle and The Journal are on sale Monday to Saturday, with sister title the Sunday Sun appearing weekly.

In addition to newspaper sale price, our titles are funded by advertising, partnerships, sponsorships and affiliate commission, which are regulated by the ASA.

Diversity Policy

The Company is committed to increasing the service quality, profitability and efficiency of the Company by attracting and recruiting the people who are best suited to meet the standards for the role and the Company without regard to race, creed, colour, nationality (subject to legal eligibility), ethnic origin, religion, gender, age, sex change, sexual orientation, marital status, connections with a national minority, membership or non-membership of a trade union or, unless justifiable, disability.

We pursue a policy of equal opportunities for all employees and potential employees.

Equal Opportunities

Reach plc is continued its commitment to equality of opportunity in all its employment practices to ensure we attract and retain the best people. In 2016, both the number of women within the Group and the number of women occupying senior managerial roles increased to 42% of staff (2015: 37%) and 31% (2015: 24%) respectively. Senior managers have responsibility for key businesses or functions within the Group.