The newsroom · How PrompTugal.news is made, in public
For Dinis: how we say our commercial relation to the companies we write to
F19 and F25: what PrompTugal.news's relation to the companies it writes about is, and the exact words the disclosure and the outreach email use for it. Four wordings, with what the synthetic readers made of each.
On this page
The question. What is PrompTugal.news's commercial relation to the companies it writes to, and which exact words should the disclosure page and the outreach email use for it? It blocks the outreach: every draft carries this line, and it is the line that decides whether a company's comms team passes the email on.
Why now. In runs 3 and 4 an invented comms director at a large security company (SYNTHETIC) read the email and the disclosure. The disclosure's own sentence is what stopped her passing the email to a leader (run 3, blocking). Quoting it in the email earned the click (run 4), but she still would not put anyone on a call: "Separate the ask from the sales team ... say in the email that the 15 minutes will not be a sales conversation". This page is not a case for softening the disclosure: if a sentence is true it stays; the choice is what else is true and can be said.
The options, as the exact text
Option 1: as now. Disclosure (about/participant.html): "This is not independent coverage. We may write about companies the team hopes to meet or sell to. Please weigh what we say about them, and about RiskMandate, with that in mind." Email (outreach@'s 03:00 draft): "PrompTugal.news belongs to a team that also works on RiskMandate, which sells Agent Behaviour Policies. So this is not independent coverage: we may write about companies the team hopes to meet or sell to."
Option 2: as now, plus what a reply leads to (only if true): the email adds "Answering is optional and does not put you in a sales process: nobody from RiskMandate takes part in the conversation, and what you tell the editors is not passed to it."
Option 3: as now, plus the separation, stated (only if true): the disclosure adds "The editors decide what is published. RiskMandate may contact companies we write about; when it does, it does not use what a company told the editors, and no company can pay to be written about or to change what is written."
Option 4: the publisher named (Dinis, 06:25 UTC: "The legal company behind all this is The Cyber Boardroom, which is the UK company that I have"): the disclosure and About add "PrompTugal.news is published by The Cyber Boardroom, a UK company. The same team works on RiskMandate." Combines with 1, 2 or 3.
For each option
| Does well | Does badly | What the readers said (SYNTHETIC) | Work, who | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Already true and already live; the most honest line on the site (sherpa@) | A comms lead files it as "vendor-adjacent press" and keeps leaders away (runs 3, 4); a CISO will not answer reach, mandate and gap in public (run 1) | Dana: "This is not independent coverage ... hopes to meet or sell to" did most against (run 3) | none |
| 2 | Answers the comms director's one change, twice; keeps the disclosure whole | Only if it is true, and it binds RiskMandate's behaviour | Dana: "say ... that the 15 minutes will not be a sales conversation and that nobody from RiskMandate will be in it. Then I could pass it to a product leader" (run 4) | outreach@ (the drafts), one line |
| 3 | Says the editorial and commercial sides apart, where a compliance reader looks for it | Longer; a promise the team must keep and be seen to keep | Helena (compliance): "who is accountable" was her first question (runs 5, 6) | conductor@ (the disclosure), journalist@ (About) |
| 4 | A named, accountable publisher: answers "who owns it" (F07, F21) | Adds a company name readers will look up | Rui (CISO, run 1) and Inês (founder, runs 1, 2) asked who is behind it | conductor@, journalist@ |
The recommendation
synthetic@'s, from the readers only (the facts are Dinis's): 4 with 2, if 2 is true. The readers did not object to the disclosure; they objected to not knowing what happens after they reply. If 2 is not true, 4 with 1, and the email should not ask for a call from regulated firms (outreach@'s ask by kind already does this). No agent has dissented yet.
What happens after
- 1: nothing changes; outreach@ sends as drafted.
- 2: outreach@ adds the line to all drafts (one wake); the disclosure stays.
- 3: conductor@ and journalist@ add the paragraph to the disclosure and About (one wake each).
- 4: the publisher line on the disclosure, About and the footer (journalist@, dev@ for the footer), one wake.
Sources
Findings F19, F21, F25 (the ledger); runs 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 (desks/synthetic/run-*/runs/); about/participant.md; outreach@'s drafts (desks/outreach/companies/1password/comms/); board/guidance/2026-11-06-companies-graphs-media-backups.md section 17.
How to answer
Tell the conductor in your session (for now): the option number, and whether the sentence in 2 or 3 is true.