Editorial standards
Trust is the whole point of a news site, so here is how we work. Found a mistake? Tell us.
How we report
We report what happened, check it, and correct ourselves in the open. Claims in our stories are sourced: we either quote a source directly or paraphrase it with the attribution in the sentence ("Cumbria Police said", "the Park Authority confirmed"). We use anonymous sources only when there is a good reason, and when we do, the story says what that reason is. New stories list their sources at the end. Older stories brought across from our previous site are being reviewed one by one.
Every article shows the date it was first published. Headlines state the fact plainly and up front; we do not hold back the point of a story to make you click.
Stories are written in one of three voices, chosen for the kind of story before it is written:
- News Desk for incidents, rescues, closures, rules and weather: factual, attributed, and free of jokes or exclamation marks.
- Enthusiast for gear and campsite reviews: opinionated and first-hand, with every family connection disclosed.
- Fireside for features about places and people: warm, and glad when there is good news to share.
When we are unsure which voice fits, we choose the more careful one.
Sensitive stories. When a story involves a death or a serious injury, dignity comes first. We do not speculate, we leave out graphic detail, and these stories run under the News Desk byline and carry no promotion, no sign-up prompts and no adverts beside them.
Rescue photographs. In every rescue story, whatever the outcome, we never show casualties or identifiable people being rescued. We use photographs of the place, or of the team and its kit, instead.
Photographs. Every image carries a credit, and we hold the rights to use it. We never pass off a general photograph as the scene of a specific incident; a picture that is not from the event is captioned as a file photo.
Corrections
When we get something wrong, we fix it in the article and add a visible note at the top saying what changed and when. A significant inaccuracy is corrected promptly and with due prominence. We do not make silent edits to published facts. When we update a story with new information, it shows an updated date and a line explaining the update.
Every correction and update is listed on our corrections page, where you can also report an error.
How we review gear
Our gear reviews are written by hikers and campers who get the kit and use it themselves, on the hills and at campsites across the UK. Each review says how and where the kit was used. If a brand supplied the kit, the review says so.
Some of the products we review are sold by shops in our own family (The Expert Camper, One Man Tents and Lexrope). Those reviews say so on the page, and we hold them to the same standard: if something in our own range is not worth the money, the review says that too. Buy links in a review may point to a family shop first, and they are always disclosed.
How we use AI
Some of our articles begin as drafts written with AI assistance, working only from public sources such as police, rescue team and park authority statements. Every one of those drafts is checked by our editor, who confirms each fact against its source and approves the article before it can appear on the site. Our publishing system does not let AI publish, schedule or change a live article; only an editor can.
We never use AI to invent quotes, sources, people or events. Articles that began as AI drafts say so in a line under the byline, and they list the sources they were written from.
Who owns us and how we make money
The Camping Fire is part of Campfire Venture, alongside Camping Sites in Britain, The Expert Camper, One Man Tents and Lexrope, and is owned by Coreter Limited. You can read more about the family on our about page.
The site pays its way in three ways, and we keep each one visible:
- Family links. Stories may point you to a campsite on Camping Sites in Britain or to kit in our family's shops. These links live in a clearly labelled "From the Campfire family" block or are disclosed in the text. News stories carry them only where they genuinely help (a closure story might point to nearby alternatives), and sensitive stories carry none.
- Advertising. Adverts appear in marked spaces only, labelled "Advertisement". They never appear in the first screen of a news story, never beside coverage of a death or tragedy, and never push the page around as they load.
- No paid-for articles. Nobody can pay to have a story published or to change what we write. If we ever run sponsored content, it will be labelled as sponsored, clearly, before you start reading.
Bylines
The Camping Fire News Desk is our shared byline for reporting written and checked by our editor. Every story involving a death or a serious injury is published under it, whenever it was written, and so is hard news from 1 October 2026. Hard news published before then keeps the byline it first carried.
No-byline stories. A story carries the News Desk byline instead of a person's name when it covers a death or a serious injury, or when it is hard news built from official statements and published from 1 October 2026. Those stories meet every standard on this page, and the News Desk page lists them all.
Writers who publish under their own names are credited as themselves, and each has an author page. We no longer use house bylines: stories that carried one now appear under the News Desk. We never give a byline invented qualifications, awards or life stories.
Talk to us
Questions about these standards, or a story you think fell short of them, can go to editor@thecampingfire.com. More ways to reach us are on the contact page.