Political Advertising Editing and Proofreading Services

Political advertising makes claims about identifiable people, at speed, in a contested environment where the opposition is looking for the error and journalists will run the story about the ad rather than its subject. The claim that matters is usually about an opponent's record — a vote, a statement, a figure — and the difference between an effective attack and an expensive retraction is a document nobody sees: the file showing exactly where the claim came from.

We edit what campaigns, parties, third-party campaigners and agencies produce — advertising copy across broadcast, digital, print and out-of-home, comparison and contrast advertising, substantiation files and source documentation, authorisation and imprint wording, digital platform ad library disclosures, fundraising advertising copy, get-out-the-vote and mobilisation copy, issue advocacy and third-party campaign material, targeting rationale and audience documentation, rebuttal and rapid response advertising, script and storyboard documentation for broadcast, and compliance and approval workflow documentation. Our editors work to the timescales campaigns run on.

The substantiation file is the document that decides whether a claim survives contact with the opposition, and campaigns routinely build the ad first and assemble the evidence when challenged. We work the other way: each factual assertion in the copy is numbered and traced to a primary source — the division list with the date, the transcript with the timestamp, the published figure with its table reference and its vintage — and anything that cannot be traced is rewritten or cut before the ad is made rather than after it has run. We check that the claim matches the source at the level of precision the source supports: a vote against a bill containing a measure is not a vote against the measure, and a quotation with its qualifying clause removed is a different quotation. We check whether the figure has been superseded, since campaigns reuse research from the last cycle. And we write the rebuttal in advance, because the opposition's response is predictable and a campaign that has drafted its answer before publishing holds the story for a day rather than losing it.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including material before release and research. We are editors rather than legal, regulatory or campaign advisers, and we offer no view on the accuracy of any claim, on election law, spending rules, imprint requirements or platform policies in your jurisdiction — those must be checked by your agent or counsel. What we can do is make the claims traceable and the copy clear.