What We Do
To achieve this, we keep to the following principles:
- The Messenger will always include a broad spectrum of coverage that isn’t beholden to highly personalized or partisan filter bubbles.
- Our newsroom reflects the breadth of our coverage, with journalists from a wide range of backgrounds.
- Opinion is clearly labeled and separate from news coverage, with the author’s name and background prominently displayed.
- The Messenger staff do not write political opinion pieces. Outside contributors write all political commentary.
- While we strive for balance in the range of our coverage, it is never at the expense of the truth. We will always note when a claim is false or unsupported by fact.
The trust of our readers is paramount. As such, we adhere to the following editorial standards intended to guard against inaccuracy and misinformation and ensure the fullest and fairest reporting:
- We use only credible sources in our reporting.
- We require our journalists to identify themselves to sources and subjects of coverage.
- We require freshly reported facts to be corroborated with multiple sources.
- We encourage sources to speak on the record and discourage the use of anonymous sources unless essential.
- We never distort facts to be favorable to a particular viewpoint.
- We update stories to keep them current and factually correct where necessary.
- We promptly correct errors after our editors assess requests.
How We Report and Credit Authors
The Messenger is committed to earning and maintaining the trust of our readers. We try to avoid running single-sourced stories and require our journalists to corroborate their reporting with multiple sources.
We aim to rely primarily on named sources in our reporting and strongly encourage our journalists to avoid anonymous sources unless it is essential. Anonymity is only granted to a source if the information is essential to the story, and revealing the source’s identity would put their life or livelihood in danger. We never publish anonymously sourced stories unless a senior editor is aware of the source’s identity and has signed off on the reporter’s use of anonymity. When we do use anonymous sources, we try to describe the source as specifically as possible without revealing their identity.
Further, The Messenger requires its journalists to make sure sources understand the terms that journalists use, such as “off the record” and “on background,” to avoid any appearance of miscommunication.
Authors of stories on The Messenger are clearly identified with bylines at the top of each article, except in occasional instances where anonymity is necessary to protect a writer’s or subject’s safety.
We aim to rely primarily on named sources in our reporting and strongly encourage our journalists to avoid anonymous sources unless it is essential. Anonymity is only granted to a source if the information is essential to the story, and revealing the source’s identity would put their life or livelihood in danger. We never publish anonymously sourced stories unless a senior editor is aware of the source’s identity and has signed off on the reporter’s use of anonymity. When we do use anonymous sources, we try to describe the source as specifically as possible without revealing their identity.
Further, The Messenger requires its journalists to make sure sources understand the terms that journalists use, such as “off the record” and “on background,” to avoid any appearance of miscommunication.
Authors of stories on The Messenger are clearly identified with bylines at the top of each article, except in occasional instances where anonymity is necessary to protect a writer’s or subject’s safety.
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