Uttarakhand News Express ETHICS POLICY
As journalists, we seek the truth and strive to present a responsible and fair glimpse of the world. The newspaper is our powerful vehicle, and we endeavor to face the public with respect and candor.
Our power must be used responsibly. Our notebooks and cameras are tickets into people’s lives, sacred worlds and complex institutions.
Our job is to intensely scrutinize the activities of others as watchdogs that challenge authority and give voice to the voiceless. Our own actions should withstand equally intense scrutiny. We should be transparent.
Transparency is won through accuracy, compassion, intellectual honesty and an introspective mission to convey complete, contextual views of our world. When we are transparent, we conduct our professional lives as if all our colleagues and our readers are watching over our shoulders.
Our goal is to begin and end each day with a primary obligation to the public’s right to know.
With every ethical scar, we threaten a delicate relationship with readers. Ethical breaches violate hard-earned trust and shatter our credibility.
To properly understand and reflect the community, we must live thoroughly and wholeheartedly in it. The constant tension of demanding a better society, while still living in it, is an obligation of a passionate and compassionate journalist. We should be independent, without being detached.
Ethics is the constant process of examining and drawing these lines. It is a communal effort, and we should hold each other accountable in the protection of our values. These values must come through a discussion with our conscience, our colleagues and our leaders, both for the public interest and our own professional education.
NEWS GATHERING: ACCURACY, FAIRNESS AND SOURCING
Nailing our stories can be as simple as phoning three people – or as grueling as spending months chiseling away the nonessential, the rumor, the red herrings.
Our aim is to deliver the facts with precision and context.
We believe in getting not only both sides, but “all” sides.
The best stories are multi-sourced. Facts are triple-checked. Issues are balanced with diverse views and sources.
They are, simply, as complete as possible.
Anonymous Sources
Uttarakhand News Express expects the information in its pages to be accurately attributed. Anonymous sources are a last resort. In the public interest, however, anonymous sourcing can be a vital tool to exposing hidden truths while protecting those who may be harmed for reporting them.
The use of anonymous or confidential sources in a story must be approved by the Managing Editor/News or the Editor. Reporters must be able to characterize the source’s accessibility to the information and the source’s credibility, and will be expected to disclose the source’s identity to editors.
In granting confidentiality, the reporter must reach a clear understanding with the source, after consultation with an editor, about how the information and attribution will be presented in the story. Care should be taken when using terms with sources such as “off the record,” “not for attribution” and “background.” Different people can have different understandings of these terms. Reporters should be specific with sources, and they should clearly explain to editors how the source believes the information will be characterized.