About us
Q: What is Post factum?
Post factum is an independent educational website.
Our focus: retrospective analysis of global affairs, backed by the best available evidence.
We publish a weekly newsletter.
Expect us to be concise, accessible and straight-to-the-point.
We are based in London, United Kingdom but most of our team is remote.
Q: What is your content all about?
We make time work for us by breaking with the daily news cycle and focusing on data-driven retrospective analysis.
Here are some of our major principles:
Factual — we stick to data and facts, instead of giving a range of opinions on a topic.
Neutral — we avoid subjectivity, value judgments or emotional characteristics.
Visual — all our reports are driven by helpful hand-crafted infographics.
Accessible — we use direct, simple language and grammar, giving definitions and context.
Less is more — we carefully select our topics and package essential info into a smooth read.
Holistic — we report issues systematically and comprehensively to minimise selection bias.
If you want to find out more about our writing style, or even contribute to our work, you can check out a version of our Style Guide.
Q: Who are you?
My name is Anton, I launched Post factum in 2023, having left my apprenticeship at The Telegraph earlier that year.
I grew up in a liberal family in Moscow, Russia, and immigrated to the United Kingdom in 2015, later becoming a British citizen.
You can find out more about me on LinkedIn.
Since our launch, Post factum has grown to a small team of collaborators who share our mission.
In particular, I wanted to single out our long-standing contributors:
Elia Preto Martini: an expert in foreign policy, a regular contributor to Diplomatic Courier and E-International Relations.
Ostap Salovskyi, PhD: an expert in Economics and open-source research, a Research Fellow at UCU Business School.
Q: How are you funded?
We secured angel funding for our launch, which allowed us to establish and maintain the Post factum website, and gather a small team of remote freelance contributors.
We also began accepting donations that all directly fund the work of Post factum.
Our investors and donors do not have a stake in the project, and have no influence over editorial decisions.
Q: Are you biased? How do you decide what is a fact?
In short, yes, we are definitely still biased.
Our approach helps us to naturally minimise bias, and share the information that is valuable regardless of the context.
However, from topic selection to editing decisions, including some information and excluding another inevitably introduces bias.
Minimising bias is part of every step of our process:
Topics: with only 52 major reports per year, we carefully pick a balanced selection of international issues and events, minimising omission bias.
Structure: we plan and re-plan the structure of each report to avoid creating a narrative, instead covering all key aspects of the issue.
Sentences: we deliver information in direct, factual statements, to avoid pushing reader towards any opinion.
Words: filtering out emotional language and opinion makes our reports direct and naturally less biased by reducing them to verifiable statements.
Other measures to keep our reports neutral:
Feedback and errors: we are very open to any comments and criticisms. If and when we make mistakes or inaccuracies, whether we find them ourselves, or you point them out, we fix them and add this information to our List of Corrections.
No Hot Takes: while we select exciting and valuable topics to cover, we avoid sensationalism. We stay away from dynamic and developing stories until there is enough data and analysis available.
Awareness: we understand that bias and narratives can arise easily at any stage, and are constantly on the lookout.
What is a fact? Fact-checking is not just about verifying information and data:
Any data collection has methodology that affects what it shows. Any “fact” has context (both in the text, and in the reader’s mind) that changes its meaning.
There is no shortcut to getting things right — we combine effort with rigour and careful planning to maximise accuracy.
What we share with you is a carefully-crafted product of this method.
Sources: Our data visualisations always have every source noted in the lower-left corner.
Most of our reports include a list of key sources and further readings at the end. However, we do not include direct references to all the sources of facts and figures throughout the text.
The reasons for this are quite specific:
We want you to remain critical. While we try to do it for you, we encourage you to question facts and explore their context.
We don’t want to use appeal to authority. We believe that the reputation of a source itself shouldn’t affect your judgement.
There should be multiple sources for everything. Any fact is cross-referenced with other available information to make sure it is consistent and to enrich context.
Q: Can I contribute to Post factum?
Yes!
We are open to job applications and pitches of report topics.
You can reach out to hello@postfactum.co.uk, or to me directly at ank@postfactum.co.uk.
If you are passionate about our mission, and know how you can bring value to Post factum, we would love to hear from you.
We advertise freelance vacancies on LinkedIn. Please refer to our page there for current openings.
We do not currently offer any internships. Thank you to everyone asking, and we hope to provide this opportunity in the coming years.
Unfortunately, due to the limited capacity of our team, and a large volume of daily work, we are sometimes unable to respond to all incoming correspondence.
Please accept our honest apologies if some of your messages went unanswered.
We would do our best to return to them but feel free to ping us again with a follow-up.
You can also share any questions or comments in the form below, but please note that it is anonymous and we would be unable to reply.