Building a House Style Guide for UK Newsrooms

What a house style guide is — and why it matters

A house style guide is a written document that records the editorial conventions your newsroom has agreed to apply consistently across all published output. It covers language, punctuation, capitalisation, number formats, attribution rules, photo captions, and headline conventions — every choice that, left unresolved, would be made differently by different journalists on different days.

The case for having one rests on three pillars. First, consistency builds reader trust: when an outlet writes “per cent” sometimes and “%” other times, readers notice the sloppiness even if they cannot name it. Second, consistency reduces legal risk: accurate and consistent attribution practices make it harder for a claimant to argue that you misrepresented a source. Third, a written guide makes onboarding faster and cheaper — a new sub or reporter can absorb months of institutional knowledge in an afternoon.

The regulatory framework reinforces this. The IPSO Editors' Code requires publishers to take care not to publish inaccurate information and to distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture, and fact. The IMPRESS Standards Code requires proportionality, accuracy, and transparency. Neither code prescribes your style choices, but both hold you accountable for the consequences of them. A house style guide is how you demonstrate that editorial decisions are deliberate rather than accidental.

Regulatory anchors: the codes that shape your guide

Before writing a single rule, understand which regulatory regime applies to your outlet. IPSO members (the majority of UK national and regional press) are bound by the Editors' Code of Practice. IMPRESS-regulated publishers follow the IMPRESS Standards Code. The BBC follows its own Editorial Guidelines, which are the most detailed publicly available editorial policy document in UK journalism. None of these organisations publish a house style guide for you, but they establish the accuracy, attribution, and harm-avoidance obligations your guide must operationalise.

Defining your tone

Tone is the personality of your outlet on the page. It is distinct from accuracy or attribution — those are obligations; tone is a choice. But it is one of the most important choices you make, because readers form an impression of your editorial character from tone before they have even evaluated a single fact.

The style guide should describe tone in terms that a journalist can act on. Abstract words like “authoritative” or “trusted” are aspirations, not instructions. Instead, answer concrete questions: Do you use contractions (“it's” rather than “it is”)? Do you write in second person to address the reader directly? Do you use colloquialisms or formal register? How do you handle irony and humour — or do you avoid them in news content entirely?

• ›State whether your default register is formal, plain English, or conversational — and whether this varies by content type (news vs features vs opinion).
• ›Specify whether contractions are permitted in news copy, feature copy, and headlines separately.
• ›Address second-person address: permitted in explainers and guides, banned in news reports, or avoided entirely?
• ›Clarify the treatment of irony, rhetorical questions, and understatement — and whether they are ever appropriate in straight news.
• ›Set rules for sentence length and paragraph length: shorter is nearly always better online, but the guide should say so explicitly.
• ›Note whether your outlet uses UK English spelling throughout (programme not program; favour not favor) and which dictionary is authoritative in cases of doubt.

Accuracy standards

Accuracy is not merely a style question — it is the primary obligation under every regulatory code that applies to UK journalism. The IPSO Editors' Code states that the press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading, or distorted information. The IMPRESS Standards Code requires publishers to take all reasonable steps to ensure accuracy. Your house style guide should translate these obligations into concrete newsroom practices.

Attribution conventions

Attribution is how readers assess the reliability of what they are reading. Poor attribution — vague sourcing, missing credentials, uncontextualised quotes — is one of the most common grounds for IPSO complaints and one of the most avoidable. Your style guide should define attribution rules precisely.

• ›Establish when named sources are required and when anonymous sourcing is permitted. As a baseline, anonymous sourcing should only be used when information cannot be obtained on the record and is in the public interest.
• ›Define how sources should be identified on first reference: full name, title, and organisation or relevant credential. Subsequent references may use surname only — the guide should say so.
• ›Address wire copy and syndicated content: state whether reporters must independently verify claims in agency copy before publication under your byline.
• ›Set rules for hyperlink attribution in digital copy: is a link sufficient attribution, or must the source be named in text as well?
• ›Cover the attribution of social media posts: a screenshot or embed is not sufficient; the platform, the account name, the date of the post, and whether the account is verified must all be specified.
• ›Address the use of AI-generated content: if AI tools are used in the production process, the guide should state when and how this must be disclosed.
• ›State how to handle statements issued by press offices: note that a statement is from the organisation, not from a named individual, unless a named individual is quoted within it.

Inclusive language and accessibility

The NUJ Code of Conduct commits journalists to produce no material that “encourages discrimination on grounds of race, colour, creed, gender, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, age, or marital status.” The IPSO Editors' Code prohibits discriminatory references to a person's race, colour, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability unless they are genuinely relevant to the story. Your house style guide should operationalise these obligations — not as a list of banned words, but as a framework for thinking about when personal characteristics are relevant and how to refer to them accurately.

Photo treatment and caption conventions

Photographs are editorial content, not decoration, and the same accuracy and harm-avoidance obligations that apply to text apply to images. Your style guide should address the selection, editing, captioning, and licensing of photographs.

• State that photographs must be correctly attributed in captions: photographer name, agency or source, and licence type (where relevant) should appear on every image.
• Define the limits of permissible digital manipulation: cropping and colour correction are generally acceptable; manipulation that alters the factual content of an image is not and should be prohibited explicitly.
• Address archive images: photographs used to illustrate a current story but taken at a different time must be captioned with the date the image was taken.
• Set rules for the use of images of children: the IPSO Editors' Code prohibits interviewing or photographing children on subjects involving their own or another child's welfare without parental consent, unless the public interest justification is documented.
• Define caption format: present tense or past tense, the inclusion of names and titles, and whether captions should end with a full stop.
• Cover the use of social media images: permission requirements, attribution, and whether to use screenshots or platform embeds.
• Address the use of AI-generated images: if your outlet uses them, the guide must state where, how they should be labelled, and what editorial oversight is required.

Headline conventions

Headlines are the most-read words in journalism and among the most regulated. An inaccurate or misleading headline is a breach of the IPSO Editors' Code even if the body of the story is accurate — a principle that has been upheld in multiple IPSO rulings. Your guide should define both the technical conventions and the accuracy standards that apply to headlines.

Frequently asked questions