The policy below governs the conduct of everyone who writes, reviews or edits for Tricity Local News. Each point is a rule. A reader can hold any page to it.
Commercial separation
Advertising, sponsorship and affiliate arrangements, where they exist, are handled apart from editorial work. No advertiser sees a draft. None approves copy, and none learns what a page will say before it publishes. A page affected by a commercial relationship carries a disclosure on that page, in plain words, near the top.
Vendor relationships
Editors accept nothing from companies they cover: no payment, no equity, no travel, no gifts. Review units, trial accounts and press briefings may be accepted when they are necessary to report a figure, and the page says so. A vendor’s data is always attributed to the vendor.
Personal holdings
An editor who holds a position in a company they cover, beyond a broad index fund, declares it to the reviewing editor. The page discloses the holding. Trading on information gathered for an unpublished page is prohibited.
Sourcing conduct
Sources are quoted accurately, in context, and in full where the meaning depends on it. Anonymous sourcing is used only when the source would face harm from being named, the information cannot be obtained otherwise, and the reviewing editor knows the source’s identity. Documents are verified before they are cited. Nothing is lifted from another publication; a figure first reported elsewhere is credited to that outlet and traced to its original source where possible.
Drafting and analysis tools
Software may be used to organize research, check figures, suggest structure and flag language problems. The editors decide what the page says, verify every figure against its source and sign the page with their names. No page publishes on the output of a tool without that review, and no fabricated figure, quotation or source enters a page through a tool.
Fairness to subjects
The subject of a critical claim, whether a company or a person, gets a chance to respond before publication when time allows. The response is reported. Claims about people stop where the evidence stops.
Reader data
An email address given for the newsletter or for a correction is used for that purpose. Nothing else. The Privacy Policy has the detail.
Accountability
Errors are corrected in the open under the Corrections Policy. A reader who believes an editor has breached this policy can write to media@tricitylocalnews.com; a different editor from the one named reviews the complaint and replies within ten business days.
