Source hold · frame 14G
HOLD SHELF · 14 August 2026
Three hold kinds, one rule
Nothing publishes from hold without clearance. The hold shelf sits between caption house and the evening cut — a physical ledge with three labelled zones and a clerk who reads every tick aloud at seventeen thirty.
Hold is not a delay tactic. It is how we keep wrong copy off the evening wire when verification is incomplete.
Every story on the CORAL SHELF may carry a hold tick at any stage before eighteen hundred. Holds are visible on the clipboard, on the cut list, and in the hold note blocks that appear on editorial pages. Readers see hold codes like L-2026-0814 or P-2026-0814 and know a slot is reserved but not yet cleared. We do not hide holds behind vague "coming soon" language. Transparency about what we cannot yet verify is part of independence.
Kind one — legal hold
Legal hold applies when counsel advises that publication might expose the desk to defamation risk, breach of court restriction, or violation of a written confidentiality clause in a scope agreement. Legal hold folders wear a red tick mark in Fira Code on the spine. Only the evening editor and designated legal liaison may open them. Content under legal hold does not leave the room — no email attachments, no shared drives, no telephone summaries to partners.
Legal hold clears when external counsel signs a one-line clearance note scanned to the hold clerk. Clearance notes are filed for seven years. If counsel cannot clear before the evening cut, the slot skips without backfill. We have cancelled entire beats for a single paragraph that failed legal review. That is expensive. It is cheaper than a correction that proves we published what we could not defend.
Kind two — source verification hold
Source verification hold is the most common kind. It triggers when a quote, statistic, or document reference lacks a return path to a named source we can reach by telephone during desk hours. The folder spine carries an amber tick. Beat editors may continue researching while on hold, but they may not alter quoted material without a new verification pass in caption house.
Source hold clears when two desk staff confirm the source by independent contact — usually a telephone call and a reply email from the same address domain listed on the source ledger. Social media screenshots alone do not clear source hold. PDFs without letterhead do not clear source hold unless cross-checked against a government portal. This kind saved us during a Bedok interchange story when a forwarded LTA diagram turned out to be a draft from the previous year.
Kind three — partner embargo hold
Partner embargo hold applies when a written scope agreement specifies a lift time for material we have already verified. The folder spine carries a gold tick — the same gold as the shelf band rule on map frames. Embargo hold is not secrecy for its own sake. It is contractual respect for partners who shared documents early on condition we wait until an agreed hour or date.
Embargo hold clears automatically at the written lift time if no legal or source hold overlaps. If overlap exists, the stricter hold wins. Tonight's home page hold note references partner embargo P-2026-0814 clearing Monday at nine hundred hours. The Marine Parade lighting tables sit in a gold-ticked folder on tier two of the hold shelf until then. The evening cut will mention the hold without publishing embargoed content.
Hold clerk duties
The hold clerk arrives at sixteen hundred and reads every folder spine aloud. At seventeen thirty they join the evening cut briefing with a list of blocking ticks. At seventeen forty-five they lock the hold shelf — literally a brass latch on the middle tier — until the cut completes or a clearance call arrives. After twenty-two hundred the clerk logs overnight holds in the mailbox queue for the next desk day.
Interns serve as hold clerks for one month minimum. The role teaches patience and scepticism. You learn that a story can be beautifully written and still wrong. You learn that partners sometimes forget they asked for embargo until you read the scope agreement back to them on speakerphone.
Hold shelf status · 14 August 2026
L-01
Legal hold
Empty — last clearance 11 August for Siglap trade notice.
S-02
Source hold
Geylang vendor quote awaiting return call — tick amber, clears on verification only.
P-03
Partner embargo
Marine Parade lighting tables — gold tick, lifts Mon 09:00 per scope clause 4.2.
Contributors who believe their story is stuck on hold should email [email protected] with the hold code if known. Do not telephone after twenty-two hundred unless legal counsel has authorised emergency clearance. For how holds interact with the publish sequence, see Evening Cut. For caption locks that precede hold, see Caption House.
