Contact Us
There is one address for everything to do with Somali Update: support@somaliupdate.com. It is a real inbox, read by the editors who run the site, and it is the only channel we use. We would rather run one address properly than five that nobody watches.
One inbox, and who reads it
Messages are triaged every working day by an editor on the desk, not by a support team or an outsourced service. Anything about a live story goes straight to the editor handling it. Anything commercial goes to the business side, a separation explained on our advertising page.
Because it is one inbox, the subject line does a lot of work. Begin yours with CORRECTION, TIP, PITCH, ADVERTISING or PRIVACY and it reaches the right person faster. Corrections and urgent security queries are read the same day, weekends included. Pitches and commercial enquiries take two to three working days, longer when a big story is running.
Corrections and complaints about accuracy
If something we published is wrong, tell us what the piece says, what it should say, and how you know. A link, a document, a name we can call. We do not need you to be polite about it.
Every report gets a reply, including the ones where we conclude the story was right. Our corrections policy explains the difference between a correction, a clarification and an update.
Tips, including the sensitive kind
We take tips from officials, aid workers, business people and readers who saw something happen. Tell us what you saw, when, and where you were standing. If you send a photograph, send the original file rather than a screenshot. The file carries information the screenshot loses.
If contacting us puts you at risk, send a first message with no detail in it, say you need to move to encrypted email, and we will arrange keys before you tell us anything. Please do not send a claim of responsibility or a casualty figure and ask us to publish it fast. We will check it, which takes time, and on this beat that is the point.
Pitches, press releases and commercial enquiries
Freelance pitches are welcome from reporters in the region and the diaspora. Send two or three paragraphs on the story, what is new in it, who you can get on the record, and a link to your work. We commission on reporting rather than opinion, and we pay for what we publish.
Press releases are read, though most describe an announcement rather than an event. Advertising, sponsorship and syndication enquiries use the same inbox. Requests about your personal data are handled under our privacy policy and answered within the period it sets out.
How to tell it is really us
We do not publish a street address. Several of our contributors work in places where being findable is a genuine hazard, and a newsroom address becomes their address. Formal legal correspondence, including notices under our DMCA policy, goes to the same email, and we will provide a postal route for service to a lawyer who needs one.
If someone contacts you claiming to represent Somali Update, asks you for money, or offers to place a story, it is not us. Ask them to reply from support@somaliupdate.com, and if they cannot, tell us. We have no agents, no resellers, and nobody selling coverage on our behalf.
