The document, or it did not happen.
We report on courts, agencies and the people who run them. That work is only worth anything if the method is visible, so here is the method.
This page is what we hold ourselves to, published so you can hold us to it too.
Getting it right
Every factual claim gets checked against a source before it publishes. Names, ages, titles, dates, dollar figures, case numbers, docket entries, and the spelling of every proper noun. Checked against something, not against memory.
Case numbers and citations are verified against the record itself, not against a filing that quotes it. A brief describing an opinion is not the opinion.
Headlines, photo captions, social posts and newsletter teases are held to the same standard as the article. A headline that promises more than the story delivers is an inaccuracy, not a marketing decision.
Where a gap remains at publication, the story says so plainly. We would rather show the reader the edge of what is verified than write around it and find out later.
Where information comes from
Documents before narrative
A claim enters a story when a document, a record or a recording supports it. Orders, transcripts, dockets, agenda packets, campaign filings, corporate records, open records responses and denial letters. An account offered by a source is a lead to be corroborated, not a finding.
Where a source narrative cannot be matched to a record, it is attributed explicitly to that source or it waits.
Where a document is public, we link to it or publish it, so a reader can check our reading against the thing itself.
Naming sources
We name our sources. You cannot weigh what you read without knowing who said it.
Anonymity is granted where a source faces a credible risk of retaliation, prosecution or loss of employment, and where the information cannot be obtained on the record. When it is granted, the story explains why and describes the source’s position closely enough for a reader to weigh the account.
A promise to a source is kept.
Quotes are accurate and in context. We clean up filler words. We do not stitch two separate statements into one quotation.
Press releases
A release is a tip, not a story. Everything in one is a claim by the sender until we check it, and we never publish one as written. If an organization wants its own words under its own name, that is sponsored content and it is labeled.
Crediting other newsrooms
When we use facts another outlet reported first, we say so by name and link to them. When we confirm something independently, we still credit whoever broke it. Oklahoma has few enough working newsrooms that pretending otherwise would be both dishonest and stupid.
Attribution is not a license to print something that would not meet our own standard. If a claim needs another outlet’s name attached to survive, that is a reason to keep reporting rather than a reason to publish.
Passing off anyone else’s work as our own is never acceptable, in any amount.
Responses
Anyone named in our reporting may respond to it. A response sent to the newsroom is added to the story, and a substantial one may run on its own.
Corrections
We run them in full and fast. The corrected article carries a dated note saying what was wrong and what it now says.
We do not quietly edit an error out of a live post. If the record changes, the record says so.
A correction resolves a factual error. It does not resolve a disagreement about framing or emphasis in reporting that is accurate, and we do not remove accurate reporting because it is unwelcome.
Every correction request gets a real answer, including the ones we decide were not errors. Send the headline, the publication date and the specific passage through the contact form and choose the corrections desk. Documentation moves it faster than argument does.
Corrections are free to read, permanently.
Photos, audio and video
We do not alter the content of a photograph. Cropping, exposure, color correction and noise reduction are fine. Adding, removing or moving anything in the frame is not.
Photo illustrations are labeled. Any image generated by AI is labeled in the caption. Stock imagery is credited.
Documents published alongside a story are published as received. Where we redact something, the redaction is visible and the story says why.
Broadcast recordings of public meetings run unedited, start to finish. Interview audio is edited for length and clarity, never in a way that changes what somebody said or the order they said it in.
The people in our stories
Officials, agencies and anyone exercising public power get scrutiny proportionate to that power. Private citizens who ended up in a proceeding they did not choose get treated very differently, and the distinction runs through everything below.
- A charge is not a convictionAn allegation in a petition is an allegation. We report what a document says and what a proceeding did, and we say which is which.
- ChildrenWe get a parent’s or guardian’s permission before naming a minor. In juvenile and family matters we do not name children at all, regardless of what the record contains.
- Withholding a nameAnyone can ask that their name be left out. We honor reasonable requests from private individuals, and we say so in the story when it leaves a visible gap.
- Case outcomesWhen a case a story covered is dismissed, reversed, expunged or resolved, we go back and say so.
- Off the recordTell us before you tell us, not after, and we will honor it.
We report on tribal nations, rural counties, small towns and cities on their own terms, and we do not write our assumptions about any of them into a story.
Social media and comments
There is no comment section on this site. That is a choice, not a technical limitation. Moderating one properly takes staff we do not have, and an unmoderated thread under a story about a custody case or a named officer does real damage to real people.
The conversation happens on Facebook and YouTube instead, on those companies’ platforms and under their rules.
- What we do thereFilter profanity where the platform allows it, remove threats against anyone, and hide comments that name a minor.
- What we leave aloneCriticism of our reporting. Disagreement is not abuse and we do not delete it.
- Errors caught in a threadWe say so in the thread, then correct the story.
- What we postOur own work, what we are covering, and where to find a document. We do not editorialize on a platform in a way we would not in print.
If you want to respond to a story, the contact form reaches more people than a comment does. A response from someone named in our reporting is added to the story.
Money and who pays
Anything paid for is labeled at the top, in a box, before the headline. Same place every time.
This is what it looks like. If a story does not carry that label, nobody paid for it.
Advertising buys ad space. Sponsored coverage buys sponsored coverage. Neither one buys a place in the regular run of the site.
Advertisers and sponsors get no editorial consideration and no editorial penalty. They do not see stories in advance and they are not told what is coming. If we report on an advertiser, the advertising relationship is disclosed in the story, the ad keeps running and so does the piece.
We decline political advertising, in every cycle and from every direction.
Content written by an outside organization runs under that author’s name with a line identifying the arrangement. We fact-check it, we copy-edit it to our standards, and we can decline it.
Comped meals, tickets and lodging accepted for coverage are disclosed in the story and never conditioned on favorable treatment.
Members read the same journalism as everyone else. Nothing is written for members or about them, and no membership moves a story an inch.
Advertising we decline
Our advertising space is open to a wide range of businesses and it is not an open platform. We decline political campaigns and ballot questions, payday and title lending, anything designed to be mistaken for reporting, and any ad we judge to be deceptive.
We may ask an advertiser to document a factual claim before it runs. If the claim cannot be supported and the advertiser will not amend it, the ad does not run.
Conflicts we have
A small newsroom covering the state it lives in will have conflicts. The honest thing is to handle them out loud rather than pretend otherwise.
The publisher’s standing disclosure
The publisher of The Oklahoma Post is a plaintiff in federal litigation naming Attorney General Gentner Drummond and Stillwater attorney James V. Murray as defendants. That litigation is pending. The publisher has also previously performed work on land associated with Drummond.
Both facts are disclosed in the body of every story this publication runs concerning Drummond, Murray or the matters at issue in that case. A reader should weigh them.
- Family and financial interestsNobody writes about a business, agency or organization where they or an immediate family member holds a financial stake or a leadership role. Where it is unavoidable, the relationship is disclosed inside the story.
- GiftsWe refuse gifts, fees, free travel and special treatment from anyone we cover.
- Outside rolesOutside employment, campaign work and officer positions in organizations we cover are disclosed to the publisher before anyone accepts them.
- Personal involvement in a caseWhere anyone here is a party, a relative of a party, or otherwise has a stake in a proceeding we are covering, it appears in the story in the first person, near the top.
Who decides
Report the story, pull the documents, build the timeline, check the facts and file. The byline is theirs.
Anyone can write for us. Contributions run under the contributor’s own name and are edited to the same standards as anything else. Write for us.
Some work here appears under a pen name. Reporting on courts, police conduct and state agencies draws retaliation, and the byline is not the part that matters. These standards apply identically to every story on this site regardless of the name on it.
Reads every word before it publishes. Final call on anonymity, corrections, unavoidable conflicts and anything involving a minor, and the responsibility for what publishes is theirs.
There is no standards editor here, no ombudsman and no ethics committee, because there is no staff to fill those roles. Pretending otherwise would be its own kind of dishonesty. The responsibility sits in one place and cannot be diffused, which means when this publication falls short of something on this page there is exactly one person to hold to it.
No government body licenses journalists and no agency enforces any of this. These standards are ours. They draw on the Associated Press Statement of News Values and Principles and the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, adapted for a small publication doing accountability work.
Think we fell short of something on this page? Say so, through the contact form.