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The Long TableFamily life across two homes

The magazine

Editorial policy

What we publish, what we refuse to publish, and what happens when we get something wrong.

A desk with a printed page marked up in pencil, a mug and a pair of reading glasses on a wooden surface.
A marked up proof. Most editorial decisions are made with a pencil, not a policy document.

On this page

  1. The scope we keep to
  2. Sourcing and accuracy
  3. Images and captions
  4. Corrections and updates

Updated 29 August 2026.

Write to the desk

01 The scope we keep to

The Long Table covers the practical, everyday side of family life across two homes. We write about routine, logistics, rooms, budgets, school terms, seasons and days out. That scope is deliberately narrow, because it is the part we can write about accurately.

We do not give legal advice, and we do not describe court processes as though a general article could stand in for advice on a particular case. We do not give clinical or therapeutic advice. Where a reader needs either, we say so plainly and point towards the kinds of service that exist, as in support for separated parents.

02 Sourcing and accuracy

We do not publish statistics, studies or quotations that we cannot stand behind, and we would rather write a sentence without a number than a sentence with a number we have not checked. Where a piece describes a place, it describes what is physically there. We avoid printing opening hours, admission prices and timetables, because those change faster than a magazine can track and a wrong figure is worse than none.

We do not publish accounts of identifiable individuals, and we do not invent examples and present them as real. Where a piece needs an illustration of a situation, it is written in general terms.

03 Images and captions

Photographs are chosen to show the ordinary settings the magazine writes about: hallways, kitchens, school gates, coast paths, quiet rooms. Captions describe what is in the picture. They do not carry instructions or claims that the picture cannot support.

We avoid images that dramatise distress. A magazine about the practical side of family life should look like the practical side of family life, and most of it looks like a kitchen on a weekday morning. The same principle runs through the children and change section, where the temptation to over-illustrate is strongest.

04 Corrections and updates

When something is wrong, we change it. Small factual corrections are made in place. Where a change alters the sense of a piece, the date on the article is updated so that a reader can see the version has moved. Older pieces stay online rather than disappearing, because a link that dies takes the reader's trust with it.

Corrections can be sent to the address on the contact page. Readers who want to know what we do with the information they send should read the privacy page, and readers who want the short version of what the magazine is for should read the about page.