Since July 1, 2014, Latvia's united news portal lsm.lv has been providing content in the English language in addition to the existing Latvian and Russian language services to reach an even wider audience.

There are many people, both overseas and even in Latvia itself, who may not have the language skills to follow Latvian-language media without some help, but who have an active interest in what's happening in the country. That number includes students, diplomats, businesspeople, tourists, members of the Latvian diaspora and their friends – even people who might find themselves at another Latvian website and want to click on something else to find out more.

The English service has two full-time employees, so cannot translate and duplicate all of the output of Latvian public media from television, radio and online content, but the English service aims to provide a steady flow of the main news stories, adding context and background where necessary, plus some original content of its own.

Lsm.lv is the unified news portal of Latvia's public television, radio and online services, with a mission to deliver informative, accurate, engaging and impartial content.

"The ‘Commentary’ section

"The ‘Commentary’ section of the LSM English-language website contains – as the name clearly suggests – not news items per se, but opinion, analysis and observations by individual contributors on current affairs and related topics.

Contributors can be demonstrable experts in the area under discussion, persons with a particular insight or writers with a thought-provoking or entertaining prose style. In all cases, the authors and any relevant affiliations they might have are clearly noted. Commentary pieces may sometimes be reproduced from other sources – for example contributions from economists of the Latvian central bank – and here, again, prior reproduction and author affiliation are clearly noted.

Commentary pieces express the views and opinions of the individual author only. They do not represent the view of the LSM English-language portal or public media in any wider sense, for public media’s commitment is always to impartiality. Any deviation from this policy – for example the opinion of an employee of Latvian public media about public media policy – will be clearly noted."