We are asking readers in St. Joseph County to trust a newsroom that did not exist a year ago. That trust has to be earned by being specific about how we operate, not by asserting that we are the good guys.

Here is how we work.

Nobody buys coverage

Funders, donors, sponsors, board members, and advertisers have no input on what we cover, how we cover it, or when we publish.

That means, concretely:

  • No funder or sponsor sees a story before it publishes
  • No funder or sponsor can request a story, kill a story, or request removal from a story
  • No donation is accepted with conditions attached to specific coverage
  • Every grant and donor agreement we sign includes a written editorial independence clause
  • Coverage decisions are made by the Editorial Director, not by the board and not by operations

If a funder, sponsor, or board member is a subject of our reporting, we disclose that relationship inside the story itself.

Our board and our money

Our board governs the organization. It does not run the newsroom. Board members set direction, hold fiduciary responsibility, and raise money. They do not assign, review, or approve stories.

Board members who fund the organization are subject to the same rule as any other donor, and their financial support is disclosed publicly. If we report on a board member, or on an entity a board member is tied to, we say so in the story.

Nonpartisan

We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. We do not endorse or oppose candidates for public office, and we do not contribute to campaigns. That is both a legal requirement and how we want to operate.

We cover candidates, ballots, elections, and officeholders aggressively. Covering someone hard is not the same as opposing them.

Opinion and analysis

When we publish something that is not straight news reporting, it is labeled. Analysis, commentary, and editorials are marked clearly at the top and treated as a separate category from our reporting.

Our reporters do not write opinion pieces about the beats they cover.

Sourcing

We prefer named sources and documents. Every anonymous source costs the reader something, so we do not use one casually.

We grant anonymity only when the information is important, when we cannot get it another way, and when the source faces a real risk of retaliation. The Editorial Director approves it. When we use an anonymous source, we tell readers why the person was granted anonymity and what their vantage point is.

We do not accept information off the record and then publish it. We honor the terms we agreed to.

Verification

Names, titles, numbers, dates, and quotes are checked before publication. Documents are read, not just summarized from someone else’s description of them.

People and institutions who are the subject of critical reporting are contacted for comment before publication, and given a reasonable window to respond. If they decline, we say so.

We do not publish rumors. We do not publish something because a competitor did.

Conflicts

Staff, freelancers, and contractors disclose any financial, political, family, or professional relationship that could reasonably appear to compromise their work. Anyone with a conflict is taken off that story, and where a conflict is unavoidable and the reporting matters, we disclose it inside the story so readers can weigh it themselves.

Our reporters do not hold office, work for campaigns, or take money from the organizations they cover.

Gifts and freebies

We do not accept gifts, favors, free travel, or special treatment from sources or subjects. We pay our own way. Anything of value that cannot be returned goes to a charity unrelated to our coverage.

Plagiarism and fabrication

Both are firing offenses. There is no version of either that we tolerate.

When we build on reporting another outlet did first, we credit them by name and link to them.

Artificial intelligence

We do not publish AI-generated reporting, AI-written articles, or AI-generated images presented as real.

We may use AI tools for tasks like transcription, searching large document sets, and formatting. A human reporter verifies every fact that reaches publication, and a human editor approves everything we publish. If AI played a meaningful role in producing a story, we disclose it in that story.

Reader concerns

If you think we fell short of any of this, tell us. editor@stjoecurrent.org. We would rather hear it from you than not hear it.