# Appendix A — Journalistic Standards Foundation

*An appendix to the Main Street Independent treatise,* What News Is For. *Published under CC0.*

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## Preface

*Main Street Independent* publishes under a [Creative Commons Zero (CC0) public domain dedication](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). That license touches every word in our newsroom, including this appendix. Because we cannot in good faith claim originality where we have inherited a profession's working consensus, we owe our readers — and our re-publishers — a transparent account of the documents and scholarly traditions from which our standards descend. This appendix supplies that account.

The structure proceeds from the four institutional documents that anchor mainstream U.S. newsroom practice (Section 1), through a small set of international and adjacent standards that materially extend or differ from them (Section 2), through the scholarly works that shaped how working journalists understand their craft (Section 3), through the historical mechanisms that turned aspirational documents into operational practice (Section 4), through the operational requirements on which those documents converge (Section 5), through the live debates that complicate them (Section 6), and concluding with a structural map showing how *Main Street Independent's* practice connects to each (Section 7).

A note on licensing, since the question is unavoidable for a CC0 publication: We treat all of the primary documents discussed here as third-party works whose copyright remains with their owners. We quote from them under U.S. fair-use principles for the purpose of historical and editorial commentary; we cite and link to them rather than re-host them; and where a document is restrictively licensed (notably the [AP Stylebook](https://www.apstylebook.com/) and the [New York Times Manual of Style and Usage](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/166694/the-new-york-times-manual-of-style-and-usage-5th-edition-by-allan-m-siegal-and-william-g-connolly/)), we paraphrase principles, do not reproduce entries, and do not incorporate them into our own style guidance. Specific licensing implications appear with each document below and are summarized in Section 5.

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## Section 1: The Four Core Institutional Documents

### 1.1 SPJ Code of Ethics (Society of Professional Journalists)

**Origin and adoption history.** The current code is the product of nearly a century of accretion. The Society of Professional Journalists was founded in 1909 as the Sigma Delta Chi journalism fraternity. In 1926 Sigma Delta Chi adopted the [American Society of Newspaper Editors' "Canons of Journalism"](https://www.spj.org/spj-code-of-ethics/) (1923) as its first borrowed code. In 1973 the Society wrote its own code, which was revised in 1984, 1987, 1996, and 2014. The 1984 convention adopted a censure clause but it was never enforced; in 1987 the Society replaced it with a call for ethics education. The 1996 revision, approved at the SPJ convention in Washington, D.C., introduced the four-pillar structure that survives in the current document; the 2014 revision, chaired by Kevin Z. Smith and approved at the Excellence in Journalism convention in Nashville, modernized the code for the digital era and added a transparency principle. As of 2026 the SPJ board has endorsed a sixth revision, with co-chairs Dan Axelrod and Chris Roberts and special advisors including Margaret Sullivan and Tom Rosenstiel; that process is ongoing and the 2014 text remains the operative version.

**Structure and content.** The 2014 code, hosted at [spj.org/spj-code-of-ethics](https://www.spj.org/spj-code-of-ethics/) and downloadable as a [PDF](https://www.spj.org/pdf/spj-code-of-ethics.pdf), is organized under four principles, each followed by bullet-point operational guidance:

| Principle | Core operational directives |
|---|---|
| **Seek Truth and Report It** | Verify before releasing; use original sources; identify sources whenever feasible; reserve anonymity for those who face genuine harm; never plagiarize; clearly label opinion and analysis |
| **Minimize Harm** | Balance public need against potential harm; show heightened sensitivity with juveniles and crime victims; recognize that legal access is not ethical justification; private people have greater privacy claims than public figures |
| **Act Independently** | Avoid conflicts real or perceived; refuse gifts and favors; resist internal and external pressure; distinguish news from advertising; label sponsored content prominently |
| **Be Accountable and Transparent** | Explain ethical choices; respond promptly to questions about accuracy; "acknowledge mistakes and correct them promptly and prominently"; "expose unethical conduct in journalism, including within their organizations" |

In its preamble the code declares: "Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. Ethical journalism strives to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough."

**Authority and adoption.** The code is voluntary and, as SPJ explicitly states, "not — nor can it be under the First Amendment — legally enforceable." It is, in the Society's own description, "a guide that encourages all who engage in journalism to take responsibility for the information they provide, regardless of medium." Despite its non-binding character, the code is, in the [Society's words](https://www.spj.org/updates-to-spj-code-of-ethics-online-interactive-links/), "considered to be the gold standard of journalism ethics and is taught in classrooms and posted in newsrooms worldwide." It has been translated into 16 languages. Many newsrooms reference or adapt it; enforcement happens through employer-specific codes that incorporate or echo its language and through reputational accountability rather than SPJ sanction. SPJ's own [position paper on enforcement](https://www.spj.org/spj-ethics-committee-position-papers-using-the-spj-code/) explains the rationale: journalism is unlicensed, and SPJ believes "a free exchange of ideas — not any sort of sanction — is the best way of getting at the truth."

**Scholarly assessment.** Scholars praise the code's accessibility and its centrality to ethics pedagogy while noting the limits of a non-enforceable instrument. Casey Bukro, longtime SPJ ethics committee member, has [written](https://ethicsadvicelineforjournalists.org/2015/10/22/online-news-crowdsource-ethics-code/) that "if you have a code of ethics and don't enforce it, why have it?" Stephen J. A. Ward, Kelly McBride, and Margaret Sullivan have all served as advisors or special consultants to revision committees; their published commentary generally treats the code as a baseline aspiration that requires institution-specific elaboration to become operational. Fred Brown's *Journalism Ethics: A Casebook of Professional Conduct for News Media* (5th ed., Marion Street Press) is the most-used companion text.

**Licensing implications for CC0 use.** The SPJ Code is not formally placed in the public domain. SPJ states that it "is an open document. The more it's distributed — and used — the better." It encourages reproduction; the [PDF](https://www.spj.org/pdf/spj-code-of-ethics.pdf) is offered for free download; SPJ provides posters and bookmarks for newsroom and classroom use. *Main Street Independent* therefore quotes from the code freely under fair use, links to the canonical version at spj.org, and does not relicense any portion of the code under CC0. We treat the code as binding on us by adoption rather than by ownership.

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### 1.2 Reuters Handbook of Journalism and the Reuters Trust Principles

**Origin and adoption history.** Reuters was founded in 1851 in London by Paul Julius Reuter. The [Reuters Trust Principles](https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en/about-us/trust-principles.html) were established in 1941, during the Second World War, as a response to government pressure to bend Reuters' reporting to British national interest. The agreement among the U.K. Newspaper Proprietors Association, the Press Association, and the shareholders restructured Reuters and created an independence covenant that survives today. The [Reuters Handbook of Journalism](https://www.handbookreuters.com/) (HoJ) is the operational companion to those principles, codifying day-to-day editorial practice for Reuters journalists across text, pictures, video, and graphics. The Handbook is now in [its third online edition](https://www.handbookreuters.com/) and is fully revised; an earlier and now-outdated public copy of the second online edition is mirrored at the [Media Reform Coalition site](https://www.mediareform.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Reuters_Handbook_of_Journalism.pdf).

**Structure and content.** The Handbook opens by tying everything to the Trust Principles: "Everything we do as Reuters journalists has to be independent, free from bias and executed with the utmost integrity. These are our core values and stem from the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles." The leading section, "Standards and Values," articulates ten "absolutes of Reuters journalism," including:

> "Always hold accuracy sacrosanct… Always correct an error openly… Always strive for balance and freedom from bias… Always reveal a conflict of interest to a manager… Always respect privileged information… Always protect their sources from the authorities… Always guard against putting their opinion in a news story… Never fabricate or plagiarise… Never alter a still or moving image beyond the requirements of normal image enhancement… Never pay for a story and never accept a bribe."

The Handbook then articulates the framework as principle-based rather than rule-based: "This handbook is not intended as a collection of 'rules'… journalism is a profession that has to be governed by ethical guiding principles rather than by rigid rules. The former liberate, and lead to better journalism. The latter constrain, and restrict our ability to operate." Subsequent sections cover sourcing, anonymous sources, dealing with the law, social media, multimedia, dealing with companies, dealing with governments, and conflict reporting.

**Authority and adoption.** The HoJ is the binding standards document for the approximately 2,500 Reuters journalists worldwide. Reuters maintains a Standards desk and an Editorial Ombudsman; violations can result in editor's notes, retractions, and dismissal. Thomson Reuters' charter documents legally require directors to "have due regard to the Reuters Trust Principles." Since 2018 Reuters has linked from each story to the Trust Principles and a "Backstory" describing how the article was reported, an unusually strong public-facing accountability mechanism described in [Adweek's coverage](https://www.adweek.com/performance-marketing/thomson-reuters-trust-principles-backstory/).

**Scholarly assessment.** Richard Sambrook (Cardiff University), a former BBC director of news, has written extensively on the Handbook as an exemplar of the wire-service objectivity tradition. Critics — including some quoted in the [research literature on Reuters Middle East coverage](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290347859_Reuters_Principles_Of_Trust_Or_Propaganda) — argue that absolute balance is incompatible with reporting on asymmetric conflicts, while defenders note that the Handbook explicitly subordinates balance to accuracy ("Accuracy, as well as balance, always takes precedence"). The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford treats the Handbook as a primary reference text in its training materials.

**Licensing implications for CC0 use.** The Reuters Handbook is published online and is freely accessible without a paywall, but it carries Thomson Reuters copyright. *Main Street Independent* may quote from the Handbook under fair use for criticism and commentary, but cannot copy substantial portions, and does not adopt Handbook entries verbatim into its own style guidance.

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### 1.3 AP Statement of News Values and Principles

**Origin and adoption history.** The Associated Press is the oldest news cooperative in the United States, founded in 1846. The earliest AP standards documents date to 1900 internal pamphlets. The AP first published a standalone *Stylebook* for the public in 1953. The [Statement of News Values and Principles](https://members.newsleaders.org/resources-ethics-ap), distinct from the Stylebook, was promulgated to articulate AP's editorial code; it has been revised periodically, most prominently by then-standards editor Tom Kent and most recently in 2022. A copy of the document is preserved at the [Newsleaders.org members site](https://members.newsleaders.org/resources-ethics-ap) and archived at [Policy Commons](https://policycommons.net/artifacts/1756732/the-associated-press-statement-of-news-values-and-principles/2488629/). The most current version is hosted by the AP itself at [ap.org](https://www.ap.org/about/news-values-and-principles/).

**Structure and content.** The Statement opens with an unusually direct mission claim:

> "For more than a century and a half, men and women of The Associated Press have had the privilege of bringing truth to the world… But always and in all media, we insist on the highest standards of integrity and ethical behavior when we gather and deliver the news. That means we abhor inaccuracies, carelessness, bias or distortions. It means we will not knowingly introduce false information into material intended for publication or broadcast; nor will we alter photo or image content."

It then specifies operational rules under headings including: anonymous sources (require manager approval; the source must have direct knowledge; "we explain the reason for the source's anonymity in the story"); attribution; conflicts of interest; fabrication; obscenities, profanities, vulgarities; political activities (editorial employees "are expected to be scrupulous in avoiding any political activity"); responses to criticism (gifts of more than nominal value must be returned); and corrections. AP's [Social Media Guidelines](https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/welcome/comm409/001/common/corefiles/social-media-guidelines_tcm28-9832.pdf), adopted in 2011 and revised most recently in 2013, extend the Statement to digital practice. The 2023 update to the AP Stylebook added a chapter on covering artificial intelligence, prepared by AP global investigative journalist Garance Burke.

**Authority and adoption.** Internally the Statement is binding on AP staff; violations are investigated by AP's Standards Center and can result in dismissal. Externally, because AP content runs in more than 1,300 newspapers and broadcasters, the Statement effectively shapes practice across the cooperative's membership. Member newspapers commonly adopt AP standards by reference, supplementing them with house rules.

**Scholarly assessment.** The Statement is widely referenced in journalism textbooks; Mencher cited it as a model in successive editions of *News Reporting and Writing*, and it appears as an appendix in the [2017 AP Stylebook](https://archive.org/details/associatedpresss0000unse_o3z9). Scholars who have critiqued the AP framework include Brent Cunningham (*Columbia Journalism Review*) on the limits of "objectivity" as enforced through wire-service style, and Tom Rosenstiel on AP's political-activity prohibitions as a model for distinguishing the journalist's professional from civic identity. The 2023 AI guidance is treated by Northwestern's Nick Diakopoulos and by [Poynter's MediaWise project](https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2023/new-ap-stylebook-guidelines-artificial-intelligence-chatgpt/) as among the most operationally clear among major newsrooms.

**Licensing implications for CC0 use.** This is the central licensing distinction in this appendix and the one most relevant to *Main Street Independent's* CC0 framework. The two AP documents are licensed differently:

- The **AP Statement of News Values and Principles** is publicly available and AP's stated purpose is the broad dissemination of its values. *Main Street Independent* therefore quotes from it under fair use, paraphrases its operational rules in our own house guidance, and links to the canonical document. We do not republish it under CC0.
- The **AP Stylebook** is a restrictively copyrighted commercial product. The standard front-matter copyright notice states that AP "retains all right, title and interest in and to the AP material… [it] may not be re-sold, sublicensed or distributed without written permission." *Main Street Independent* may not quote substantial portions of Stylebook entries, may not integrate Stylebook entries into our own style guidance, and treats the Stylebook only as a reference work for internal editorial decisions. Our own published style guidance is original or paraphrases publicly available principles; nothing CC0-released by *Main Street Independent* contains material drawn from the Stylebook.

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### 1.4 The New York Times Standards and Ethics

**Origin and adoption history.** The Times' style guide originated in 1895 as an internal pamphlet to ensure consistency. The first hardcover edition was published in 1950 as *Style Book of The New York Times*. The current commercial volume, *[The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/166694/the-new-york-times-manual-of-style-and-usage-5th-edition-by-allan-m-siegal-and-william-g-connolly/)* (5th ed., 2015), was revised by senior standards editor Philip B. Corbett with William G. Connolly and published by Three Rivers Press / Crown / Penguin Random House (ISBN 978-1-101-90544-9). The standards-and-ethics framework is a separate set of documents:

- The **Newsroom Integrity Statement** (1999), promulgated jointly by the Times' news, editorial, and business leadership.
- **[Guidelines on Integrity](https://members.newsleaders.org/resources-ethics-nyinteg)** (originally 1999, derivative of the 1998 leadership statement).
- The **Policy on Confidential Sources** (2004).
- **Ethical Journalism: A Handbook of Values and Practices for the News and Opinion Departments** (2008, periodically updated), which incorporates and extends the earlier documents.

**Structure and content.** The Times' framework anchors itself in a 1998 declaration by the joint leadership: "Our greatest strength is the authority and reputation of The Times. We must do nothing that would undermine or dilute it and everything possible to enhance it." The Guidelines on Integrity articulate the operating philosophy: "Reporters, editors, photographers and all members of the news staff of The New York Times share a common and essential interest in protecting the integrity of the newspaper… it is imperative that The Times and its staff maintain the highest possible standards to insure that we do nothing that might erode readers' faith and confidence in our news columns."

Specific provisions cover:

- **Fact-checking**: "Writers at The Times are their own principal fact checkers and often their only ones… Concrete facts — distances, addresses, phone numbers, people's titles — must be verified by the writer with standard references."
- **Attribution**: Material from other publications, including AP, "must be attributed… we do not treat its reporting as our own."
- **Corrections**: "The Times recognizes an ethical responsibility to correct all its factual errors, large and small. The paper regrets every error… If a correction is warranted, fairness demands that it be published immediately."
- **Rebuttals**: "we seek and publish a response from anyone criticized in our pages."
- **Confidential sources**: governed by a separate 2004 policy that requires editor approval, articulation of why anonymity was granted in the story itself, and disclosure to at least one editor of the source's identity.

The *Ethical Journalism* handbook handles outside activities, gifts, financial holdings, and political involvement. The opinion department operates under parallel guidelines administered by the opinion editor.

**Authority and adoption.** The Times maintains a senior editor for Standards (Philip B. Corbett, 2010–2024; Susan Wessling, 2024–present, per the Times' [internal announcement](https://talkingbiznews.com/media-moves/ny-times-makes-editorial-changes-in-standards/)), who is the principal interpretive authority. Authority is vested in department heads, ranking editors, the standards editor, and the opinion editor and managing editor. The Times maintained a Public Editor from 2003 (Daniel Okrent, appointed after the Jayson Blair plagiarism scandal) through 2017 (Liz Spayd, the sixth and final), reporting to the publisher rather than through the newsroom hierarchy. The Public Editor was eliminated in 2017 in favor of a staff-run Reader Center. Disciplinary consequences for serious violations have included dismissal (Blair, 2003; Judith Miller, 2005) and editorial leadership change (Howell Raines, 2003).

**Scholarly assessment.** The Times' framework is the most-studied house code in U.S. journalism. Scholars at the [Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security](https://journalism.columbia.edu/news/columbia-journalism-school-launches-craig-newmark-center-journalism-ethics-and-security) at Columbia, where Margaret Sullivan now serves as executive director, treat it as the dominant reference. Critics, notably Jay Rosen and Wesley Lowery, have argued that the Times' implicit "view from nowhere" conception of objectivity is incompatible with reporting on bad-faith actors and asymmetric political conflict (see Section 6). The Times itself has, since the 2020 controversies surrounding the Tom Cotton op-ed and James Bennet's resignation, modestly revised its framing without altering its core documents.

**Licensing implications for CC0 use.** The Times' situation is complex and warrants special caution:

- The **Guidelines on Integrity** and the **Ethical Journalism handbook** are NYT-copyrighted but published for transparency; quotation under fair use is permissible and *Main Street Independent* does so.
- The **Manual of Style and Usage** is a commercial book under copyright by The New York Times Company and Crown / Penguin Random House. *Main Street Independent* may not reproduce entries from it, may not adopt them into our own style guidance, and refers to it only by reference for internal editorial decisions — exactly as we treat the AP Stylebook.

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## Section 2: International and Adjacent Standards

### 2.1 BBC Editorial Guidelines

The [BBC Editorial Guidelines](https://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/), most recently revised in a substantial 2025 update under Director General Tim Davie, are the operational standards for all BBC content. They differ structurally from U.S. standards in four important respects:

1. **Statutory grounding.** Impartiality has been a statutory requirement on UK broadcasters since the 1954 Television Act; the BBC was brought formally under similar obligations in 1996. The Guidelines therefore have the force of regulatory compliance, not merely internal policy.
2. **The "due" qualifier.** The Guidelines articulate "due accuracy" and "due impartiality" — terms drawn from the 1954 Act's requirement that broadcasters present news "with due accuracy and impartiality." "Due" means "adequate or appropriate to the output, taking account of the subject and nature of the content, the likely audience expectation and any signposting that may influence that expectation." This is materially weaker than mathematical balance: it explicitly allows weighing of evidence and rejection of false equivalence.
3. **Hierarchy of values.** The 2025 Guidelines elevated impartiality above accuracy in the listed order, reflecting Davie's declaration that impartiality is the BBC's "very essence." Earlier editions had listed accuracy first.
4. **"Impartiality does not mean detachment from fundamental democratic values."** The Guidelines explicitly refuse a flat neutrality that would treat democratic and authoritarian commitments as equivalent.

The Accuracy section states: "We seek to establish the truth of what has happened and are committed to achieving due accuracy in all our output. Accuracy is not simply a matter of getting facts right; when necessary, we will weigh relevant facts and information to get at the truth." This formulation — accuracy as a process of weighing rather than mere transcription — is more rigorous than the SPJ or AP equivalents.

For *Main Street Independent's* purposes, the BBC's "due" qualifier is the most operationally useful import: it provides a mature framework for refusing false balance without abandoning fairness.

### 2.2 The Reuters Trust Principles (as a separate document)

The five [Reuters Trust Principles](https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en/about-us/trust-principles.html), as adopted by the combined Thomson Reuters at the 2008 merger and reaffirmed since, are:

1. That Thomson Reuters shall at no time pass into the hands of any one interest, group or faction;
2. That the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Thomson Reuters shall at all times be fully preserved;
3. That Thomson Reuters shall supply unbiased and reliable news services to newspapers, news agencies, broadcasters and other media subscribers and to businesses, governments, institutions, individuals and others with whom Thomson Reuters has or may have contracts;
4. That Thomson Reuters shall pay due regard to the many interests which it serves in addition to those of the media; and
5. That no effort shall be spared to expand, develop and adapt the news and other services and products of Thomson Reuters so as to maintain its leading position in the international news and information business.

Their distinctive contribution to journalism's standards corpus is governance: they are enforced by a Founders Share Company holding a single golden share with veto rights, an unusually strong corporate-law mechanism for editorial independence. No U.S. analogue exists at comparable scale.

### 2.3 IFCN Code of Principles

The [International Fact-Checking Network Code of Principles](https://www.ifcncodeofprinciples.poynter.org/), launched 15 September 2016 at the Poynter Institute, governs fact-checking organizations specifically. Verified signatories must adhere to five commitments:

1. **Nonpartisanship and Fairness** — "We fact-check claims using the same standard for every fact check… We do not advocate or take policy positions on the issues we fact-check."
2. **Transparency of Sources** — sources are provided "in enough detail that readers can replicate" the work.
3. **Transparency of Funding and Organization**.
4. **Transparency of Methodology**.
5. **Open and Honest Corrections** — "We publish our corrections policy and follow it scrupulously."

Verification involves assessment by independent assessors against [31 specific criteria](https://ifcncodeofprinciples.poynter.org/the-commitments). Status must be renewed annually. Since 2016 Facebook (and successor Meta) has used IFCN signatory status as a minimum for participation in its Third-Party Fact-Checking Program, giving the Code material market force. The European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN), launched in 2022, builds on IFCN with stricter European-specific criteria.

For *Main Street Independent*, IFCN's transparency-of-methodology requirement is the most directly portable: any verification claim we make should be traceable to sources and method.

### 2.4 The Trust Project Indicators

[The Trust Project](https://thetrustproject.org/), founded in 2014 by journalist Sally Lehrman with original funding from Craig Newmark Philanthropies and Google, launched its [eight Trust Indicators](https://thetrustproject.org/faq/) in November 2017 with a consortium that has grown to over 300 outlets. The eight indicators are:

1. **Best Practices** — published ethics, ownership, funding, mission, and corrections policies.
2. **Author/Reporter Expertise** — journalist biographies and credentials.
3. **Type of Work** — news, opinion, analysis, sponsored, etc., explicitly labeled.
4. **Citations and References** — links and source attribution.
5. **Methods** — explanations of how complex stories were reported.
6. **Locally Sourced** — disclosure when reporting is local.
7. **Diverse Voices** — newsroom efforts to include varied perspectives.
8. **Actionable Feedback** — mechanisms for reader input.

The Project's signal contribution is the integration of these indicators into [Schema.org](https://schema.org/docs/news.html) news markup vocabulary, allowing platforms (Google, Bing, Meta) to surface trustworthy journalism algorithmically. The Project's [own website](https://thetrustproject.org/about/) explicitly grounds its principles in the 1947 Hutchins Commission report. For a CC0 publication operating outside legacy institutions, the Trust Indicators offer a near-complete, machine-readable transparency framework, and *Main Street Independent* can implement Schema.org news markup without licensing constraints.

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## Section 3: The Scholarly Foundation

### 3.1 Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, *The Elements of Journalism*

**Authors.** Bill Kovach is a former Washington bureau chief of *The New York Times*, former editor of *The Atlanta Journal-Constitution*, former curator of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard, and founding chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists. Tom Rosenstiel is a former press critic for the *Los Angeles Times*, former chief congressional correspondent for *Newsweek*, former director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, and currently a professor at the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

**Publication history.** *The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect* was first published in 2001 by Crown Publishers. Subsequent editions appeared in 2007 (Three Rivers Press, ISBN 978-0307346704), 2014, and 2021 (Crown / Penguin Random House, [4th edition](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/671513/the-elements-of-journalism-revised-and-updated-4th-edition-by-bill-kovach-and-tom-rosenstiel/), ISBN 978-0593239353). The book emerged from the work of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, which conducted public forums and interviewed approximately 300 working journalists between 1997 and 1999 to identify a working consensus.

**Central thesis and key concepts.** The book argues that journalism's "primary purpose… is to provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing." It articulates ten elements (originally nine; an "engagement and relevance" element was added in later editions, with a tenth in the 2014 edition recognizing citizen journalism):

1. Journalism's first obligation is to the truth.
2. Its first loyalty is to citizens.
3. Its essence is a discipline of verification.
4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover.
5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power.
6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.
7. It must strive to keep the significant interesting and relevant.
8. It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional.
9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience.
10. Citizens have rights and responsibilities when it comes to the news.

The "discipline of verification" is the book's most influential operational concept: it argues that what distinguishes journalism from propaganda, advertising, or fiction is not objectivity-of-the-journalist but a method for testing claims that produces reliable knowledge. This reframing — from objectivity-as-neutrality to objectivity-as-method — has been adopted, sometimes silently, in the operational standards of Reuters, AP, and the Times.

**Influence.** The book has won the Goldsmith Book Prize (Harvard), an SPJ Award, and the Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism (Penn State). It is taught in virtually every U.S. journalism school. The 2014 SPJ Code revision committee drew explicitly on its framework. The Trust Project's transparency commitments operationalize Element 3.

**Contemporary scholarly assessment.** The book is treated as the canonical statement of late-20th-century U.S. journalism's normative consensus. Critics (Jay Rosen, Jeff Jarvis) have argued that the formulation is too journalist-centered and that the digital era requires reconceiving "journalism" as a function performed by a wider set of actors. The 2014 edition responded directly to this critique with the citizen-rights element.

### 3.2 Melvin Mencher, *News Reporting and Writing*

**Author.** Mencher (1927–2018) was a working reporter who became a professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism for 28 years and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard. His concise *Sayings of Chairman Mel* was published by Poynter.

**Publication history.** *News Reporting and Writing* was first published in 1977 and went through 12 editions by 2010 (12th ed., McGraw-Hill, [ISBN 978-0073511993](https://www.amazon.com/Melvin-Menchers-News-Reporting-Writing/dp/0073511994)). The textbook tradition the book represents is the dominant route through which U.S. journalism students for four decades acquired their working-knowledge of the craft.

**Central thesis and content.** Mencher's preface frames journalism as a craft requiring specific operational discipline: "Learning to report accurately and to write precisely and vigorously are no simple tasks." The textbook covers source-handling, beat reporting, interview technique, the inverted pyramid, leads, public records, court reporting, government reporting, and ethical decision-making, organized around what Mencher called the "values that direct and underlie the practice of journalism." The book's distinctive contribution is its insistence that ethics be taught as part of craft rather than as an abstract appendix — every chapter integrates ethical considerations with operational technique.

**Influence and assessment.** Mencher trained, by the publisher's claim, more than a quarter-million students. Critics (notably the Missouri Group, see 3.3) faulted the book for an East Coast / metropolitan-paper bias and insufficient attention to broadcast and digital workflows; defenders praised its rigor and Mencher's voice. The book is now functionally retired but remains widely cited as the textbook tradition's first wave.

### 3.3 The Missouri Group, *News Reporting and Writing*

**Authors.** Brian S. Brooks (associate dean, Missouri School of Journalism), George Kennedy (professor emeritus, Missouri; former managing editor of the *Columbia Missourian* and former Miami Herald bureau chief), Daryl R. Moen (professor of journalism, Missouri; former editor of three daily newspapers), and Don Ranly (professor emeritus, Missouri; former magazine sequence director). Recent editions add John R. Bender and Kathryn T. Stofer.

**Publication history.** First published in 1980 by Bedford / St. Martin's; the 12th edition (2018) and a related companion volume *Telling the Story* are current. ISBN of the [10th edition](https://www.amazon.com/News-Reporting-Writing-Missouri-Group/dp/0312618115): 978-0312618117.

**Central thesis and content.** The Missouri Group textbook codifies the "Missouri Method" pedagogy: students learn by working in real newsrooms (the *Columbia Missourian*, KOMU-TV, KBIA radio) under faculty supervision. The textbook's distinguishing operational guidance is its detailed treatment of beat reporting, public records access, and convergent (multi-platform) workflows. It is more practitioner-focused and less philosophical than Kovach/Rosenstiel, more workflow-oriented and less Eastern-paper-centric than Mencher.

**Influence and assessment.** The Missouri Group volume and *Telling the Story* are the dominant textbooks in U.S. journalism programs as of the 2020s. Their treatment of corrections, attribution, and source-handling closely tracks the AP Statement and the SPJ Code, providing the operational mortar between aspirational standards and classroom practice.

### 3.4 Walter Williams, "The Journalist's Creed"

**Author.** Walter Williams (1864–1935) was a self-taught Missouri newspaper editor who founded the world's first journalism school at the University of Missouri in 1908 and later served as the university's president.

**Publication.** Williams composed [The Journalist's Creed](https://journalism.missouri.edu/the-j-school/the-j-school-legacy/) in 1914 as a personal affirmation. It was printed in Missouri School of Journalism bulletins, then disseminated globally; a bronze plaque hangs at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The Creed has been translated into more than 100 languages.

**Content.** The Creed opens: "I believe in the profession of journalism. I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of their responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of a lesser service than the public service is betrayal of this trust." Subsequent clauses affirm "clear thinking and clear statement, accuracy and fairness," reject "suppression of the news, for any consideration other than the welfare of society," and assert that "the journalism which succeeds best — and best deserves success — fears God and honors Man."

**Influence.** The Creed was the first articulation in English of the public-trust framing now codified in SPJ ("public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice"), Kovach/Rosenstiel ("first loyalty is to citizens"), and the Times' integrity guidelines. Its religious diction has dated; its core proposition that the public journal is a public trust is the foundational claim of the entire U.S. ethical tradition. Ronald T. Farrar's *A Creed for My Profession: Walter Williams, Journalist to the World* (University of Missouri Press, 1998, ISBN 978-0826211743) is the standard biography.

### 3.5 Wilbur Schramm and the Social Responsibility Theory of the Press

**Authors and book.** Fred S. Siebert, Theodore Peterson, and Wilbur Schramm published *[Four Theories of the Press: The Authoritarian, Libertarian, Social Responsibility, and Soviet Communist Concepts of What the Press Should Be and Do](https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p724213)* with the University of Illinois Press in 1956. The book has sold approximately 90,000 copies and has been called by James Curran "the bible of comparative media studies."

**Central thesis.** The book proposes a typology of press systems organized around their relationship to political authority. The Social Responsibility chapter, written by Peterson, drew explicitly on the Hutchins Commission's 1947 report (see Section 4.1) and proposed that press freedom in mid-20th-century democracies must be balanced by affirmative obligations: providing a "truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent account of the day's events"; serving "as a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism"; projecting a "representative picture of the constituent groups in society"; presenting and clarifying "the goals and values of the society"; and providing "full access to the day's intelligence."

**Influence.** Social-responsibility theory is the dominant normative framework in the U.S. journalism tradition; it is the implicit theory underlying the SPJ Code, the AP Statement, the Times' integrity framework, and Kovach/Rosenstiel. It also provides the conceptual basis for ombudsmen, public editors, and the Trust Project.

**Contemporary scholarly assessment.** Critics (Hallin and Mancini, *Comparing Media Systems*, Cambridge University Press 2004, ISBN 978-0521543088; Christians et al., *Normative Theories of the Media*, University of Illinois Press 2009) have faulted *Four Theories* as Cold War — era and as obscuring class, race, and gender dimensions of press systems. The framework is taught primarily as historical foundation rather than as adequate present theory, but its social-responsibility chapter remains the most-cited statement of the U.S. normative tradition.

---

## Section 4: How Standards Became Operational

### 4.1 The Hutchins Commission (1947)

The [Commission on Freedom of the Press](https://niemanreports.org/1947-a-free-and-responsible-press/), funded with $200,000 from Henry Luce of Time Inc. and $15,000 from Encyclopedia Britannica, was chaired by University of Chicago President Robert M. Hutchins and met from 1943 to 1947. Its 12 members included Archibald MacLeish, William Ernest Hocking, Zechariah Chafee Jr., and Reinhold Niebuhr. The general report, *A Free and Responsible Press: A General Report on Mass Communications — Newspapers, Radio, Motion Pictures, Magazines, and Books* (University of Chicago Press, 1947; available digitally at the [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/freeresponsiblep0000comm)), proposed five duties of the press, summarized in Section 3.5 above.

The report received hostile reception from publishers but became, through Schramm's 1956 codification, the foundation of social-responsibility theory and, through that theory, of the codes and statements that succeeded it. The Trust Project explicitly cites the Hutchins Principles as its starting point. Margaret A. Blanchard's "The Hutchins Commission, The Press and the Responsibility Concept" (*Journalism Monographs*, May 1977) and Stephen Bates's *An Aristocracy of Critics* (Yale University Press, 2020, ISBN 978-0300181456) are the standard scholarly treatments.

### 4.2 The Codification of the Standards Desk

The institutional standards editor or standards desk function emerged most clearly between 1950 and 2010:

- **The New York Times** created the Public Editor position in 2003 after the Jayson Blair scandal; Daniel Okrent was first. The standalone standards-editor function predates the Public Editor and continued after its 2017 abolition: Allan M. Siegal led standards through the 1990s and early 2000s; Philip B. Corbett held the role from 2010 to 2024, succeeded by Susan Wessling.
- **The Washington Post** appointed its first ombudsman, Richard Harwood, in 1970 under Ben Bradlee, with an unusually strong independence guarantee — the column appeared without management pre-review. The position was eliminated in 2013.
- **The Associated Press** maintains a Standards Center under a Vice President for Standards (most recently Amanda Barrett, who supervised the 2023 AI guidance).
- **Reuters** maintains a Standards desk and an Editorial Ombudsman; Trust Principles compliance is supervised by the Reuters Founders Share Company.

The function moved from advisory in mid-century to formally institutional in the 2000s and is now under pressure as legacy newsrooms cut overhead.

### 4.3 The Role of Journalism Schools

Four schools have been disproportionately important transmitters of standards:

- **Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism** (founded 1912, funded by Joseph Pulitzer's 1903 bequest), publishes the *Columbia Journalism Review* and houses the Tow Center for Digital Journalism and the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security.
- **Missouri School of Journalism** (founded 1908, the world's first), originator of the "Missouri Method" and home of the Missouri Group textbook authors.
- **Northwestern University Medill School** (founded 1921), known for hands-on residency programs and integrated standards/practice pedagogy.
- **University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism** (founded 1965 as a graduate-only program), historically associated with investigative and documentary traditions.

Other significant transmitters include the Poynter Institute (St. Petersburg, FL), the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford, and the Knight Foundation–funded fellowship and grant programs.

### 4.4 Ombudsmen and Public Editors

The modern news ombudsman traces to 1967, when the *Louisville Courier-Journal* and *Louisville Times* created the position. Richard Harwood at the *Washington Post* in 1970 established the independent-column model. The Organization of News Ombuds and Standards Editors (ONO) was founded in 1980. Numbers peaked at approximately 40–50 U.S. ombudsmen in the early 2000s; *Washington Post* eliminated its position in 2013, *New York Times* in 2017. Internationally, the BBC, *The Guardian*, CBC, and ABC (Australia) maintain robust standards-editor or ombuds functions. The function provides what Stephen Ward and others have called "contracted accountability" — a mechanism by which a news organization commits publicly to internal critique and audience-response.

### 4.5 The Corrections Culture

Post-publication correction as a discipline emerged in the early 20th century but was operationalized as a daily institutional practice in the 1970s. The *New York Times* "Corrections" box, introduced in the 1970s and standardized in the 1980s, was widely imitated. Correction discipline is now codified in every major standards document and is the most empirically observable operational test of a publication's commitment to accuracy. The IFCN Code makes a published corrections policy a verification requirement.

---

## Section 5: What the Standards Require Operationally

The following operational requirements appear in substantively identical form in the SPJ Code, Reuters Handbook, AP Statement, and Times Guidelines, with minor differences in language and emphasis. *Main Street Independent* adopts them by reference.

| Requirement | Articulation |
|---|---|
| **Verification before publication** | SPJ: "Verify information before releasing it… Remember that neither speed nor format excuses inaccuracy." Reuters: "It is our job to get it first but it is above all our job to get it right." AP: "we will not knowingly introduce false information into material intended for publication or broadcast." NYT: "Writers at The Times are their own principal fact checkers." |
| **Attribution of every factual claim** | SPJ: "Identify sources clearly. The public is entitled to as much information as possible to judge the reliability and motivations of sources." AP: "We should give the full name of a source and as much information as needed to identify the source and explain why he or she is credible." NYT: material from other publications "must be attributed." |
| **Distinction between news and opinion** | SPJ: "Distinguish news from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two." Trust Project Indicator 3: "Type of Work" labels. |
| **Independence from sources, advertisers, political interests** | SPJ: "Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived." Reuters Trust Principle 2. AP: "Editorial employees are expected to be scrupulous in avoiding any political activity." NYT Guidelines: detailed conflict-of-interest provisions. |
| **Minimization of harm** | SPJ: "Balance the public's need for information against potential harm or discomfort… private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than public figures." |
| **Transparency about methods** | SPJ 2014 (transparency added): "Explain ethical choices and processes to audiences." IFCN Principle 4. Trust Project Indicator 5: "Methods." |
| **Corrections discipline** | SPJ: "Acknowledge mistakes and correct them promptly and prominently." NYT: "an ethical responsibility to correct all its factual errors, large and small." |
| **Anonymous source rules** | SPJ: "Reserve anonymity for sources who may face danger, retribution or other harm, and have information that cannot be obtained elsewhere." AP requires manager approval and direct knowledge. NYT 2004 Policy on Confidential Sources requires editor approval and disclosure of identity to at least one editor. |
| **Quotation standards** | All four: quotations must be verbatim; conventional cleanup (false starts, ums) is permitted; substantive editing of quoted speech is not. AP: "The same care that is used to ensure that quotes are accurate should also be used to ensure that quotes are not taken out of context." |
| **Public-figure vs. private-figure handling** | Drawn from *New York Times v. Sullivan* (376 U.S. 254, 1964) and *Gertz v. Robert Welch* (418 U.S. 323, 1974) but operationalized in standards documents: public figures who seek "power, influence or attention" (SPJ language) have reduced privacy claims; private figures retain stronger privacy protection. |

**Licensing summary.** Of the documents discussed:

- **Free to quote and adapt under fair use** (the publication's stated practice): SPJ Code, AP Statement of News Values and Principles, Reuters Handbook, Reuters Trust Principles, NYT Guidelines on Integrity, NYT Ethical Journalism handbook, BBC Editorial Guidelines, IFCN Code of Principles, Trust Indicators (the Schema.org vocabulary itself is open).
- **Restrictively copyrighted commercial products requiring licensing for substantial reproduction**: AP Stylebook (and *Briefing on Media Law*), New York Times Manual of Style and Usage. *Main Street Independent* uses these only as internal references for editorial decisions; we do not reproduce entries, do not adopt entries into our own published style guidance, and do not relicense any portion under CC0.

---

## Section 6: Contested Elements and Contemporary Debates

### 6.1 The Objectivity Debate and the Rise of Transparency

The classical defense of journalistic objectivity — articulated most influentially by Walter Lippmann in *Liberty and the News* (1920) and *Public Opinion* (1922) — held that reporters could and should produce knowledge that was independent of their own values, modeled on scientific method. Kovach and Rosenstiel reframe the concept productively: the discipline of verification is objective; the journalist need not be. David Weinberger's 2009 aphorism — "[transparency is the new objectivity](https://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2009/07/19/transparency-is-the-new-objectivity/)" — captured the shift now visible in the SPJ 2014 revision (which added transparency as a core obligation), the Trust Project's transparency-of-methods indicators, and IFCN's transparency-of-methodology requirement.

### 6.2 False Balance and the "View From Nowhere"

NYU professor Jay Rosen, writing at [PressThink](https://pressthink.org/), has been the most systematic critic of what he calls the "[View from Nowhere](https://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-questions-and-answers/)," a phrase he adapted from philosopher Thomas Nagel. Rosen's 2010 FAQ defines it as "a bid for trust that advertises the viewlessness of the news producer." His argument is that the construct (a) is unearned, (b) protects journalists from accountability for actual conclusions reached through reporting, and (c) becomes pathological when applied to bad-faith actors. Rosen's 2021 ["here's where we're coming from" essay](https://pressthink.org/2021/11/the-heres-where-were-coming-from-statement-in-journalism/) proposes viewpoint disclosure as the successor practice.

Margaret Sullivan, *New York Times* Public Editor 2012–2016 and *Washington Post* media columnist 2016–2022, made the false-balance critique a recurring theme of her [columns](https://margaretsullivan.substack.com/) — most prominently in her 2024 "[An ugly case of false balance in the New York Times](https://margaretsullivan.substack.com/p/an-ugly-case-of-false-balance-in)" newsletter, and in earlier columns at the Times (her [first NYT column](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/public-editor/16pubed.html), 16 September 2012, addressed factchecking and false equivalence directly). Sullivan now directs the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia Journalism School and is an advisor to the SPJ Code revision.

Liz Spayd, Times Public Editor 2016–2017, took a contrary view, arguing in several columns that the Times had over-corrected toward partisan judgment and that more, not less, balance was needed. Her tenure was widely criticized, and the position was abolished after she left; coverage in [*Slate*](https://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/04/liz_spayd_is_failing_as_the_new_york_times_public_editor.html) and the [*Columbia Journalism Review*](https://www.cjr.org/analysis/liz-spayd-public-editor-new-york-times.php) documents the critique.

The debate is unresolved. *Main Street Independent's* working position — fairness without false equivalence; verification before balance — tracks the dominant post-2016 evolution but acknowledges that reasonable disagreement persists.

### 6.3 Bad-Faith Political Actors

A connected debate concerns whether traditional standards designed for good-faith disagreement cope with actors who deliberately deceive. Wesley Lowery's June 2020 [argument](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/business/media/objectivity-journalism-coronavirus.html) that "the core value needs to be the truth, not the perception of objectivity" and Nikole Hannah-Jones's CNN remarks that "even-handedness, both-sidism, the 'view from nowhere' doesn't actually work in the political circumstances we're in" are the canonical statements of the position. The opposing view — that the standards are correct and the application has failed — has been articulated by figures including Bret Stephens, Bari Weiss, and the *Reason* magazine media critique of Sullivan's *Newsroom Confidential*. *Main Street Independent* takes no editorial position on the partisan stakes but adopts the operational requirement that demonstrably false claims be characterized as such regardless of speaker.

### 6.4 Platform Distribution

The Trust Project, the IFCN, and the Schema.org news vocabulary are the principal responses to the challenge that platform-distributed news has decoupled content from publisher reputation. The unresolved question: standards developed for institutions assume institutional accountability; platforms surface individual articles. The Trust Indicators are the most fully developed answer, machine-readable signals attached to individual stories. The IFCN's role in Meta's third-party fact-checking program is the most market-significant operational instance.

### 6.5 AI-Generated Content

As of 2026 the landscape is partial. The clearest operational guidance comes from:

- **Reuters' AI principles** (2023): human supervision of all AI-generated content; transparency about AI use; AI cannot substitute for editorial judgment.
- **AP's AI guidelines** (August 2023): generative AI "cannot be used to create publishable content and images for the news service" without human supervision; AP-generated AI illustrations must be clearly labeled. The 2023 AP Stylebook AI chapter, prepared by Garance Burke, supplies coverage guidance.
- **The New York Times'** May 2024 [generative AI principles](https://www.nytimes.com/by/the-new-york-times) authorize Google Vertex AI, GitHub Copilot, and a restricted OpenAI API for newsroom use, plus the proprietary "Echo" summarization tool.
- **BBC's** February 2024 AI framework structures uses around three categories: value to audiences, value to journalists, value to operations.

A [2023 study by Hannes Cools and Nick Diakopoulos](https://generative-ai-newsroom.com/) of AI policies at 21 newsrooms found that none of them are operationally enforceable in the way verification rules are; they are principles awaiting concrete violation cases. *Main Street Independent's* AI policy, articulated in the treatise body, is one operational instantiation of the Reuters/AP framework: human review of all AI-assisted content; disclosure of significant AI use; no AI-generated images presented as documentary photography.

---

## Section 7: How Main Street Independent Maps to Each Standard

This section maps the commitments articulated in the treatise body to the inherited standards from which they descend.

### 7.1 The SPJ Code's Four Pillars

| SPJ Pillar | Main Street Independent's corresponding commitment |
|---|---|
| Seek Truth and Report It | Every factual claim is verified by a named source or document; community-sourced reporting is verified before publication; AI-assisted research output is verified independently. |
| Minimize Harm | Private individuals are named only where necessary to the public interest of the story; juveniles are named only with guardian consent or where the public-interest threshold is met. |
| Act Independently | Contributor financial relationships are disclosed; political activity by editorial contributors is disclosed; there is no advertising/editorial overlap. |
| Be Accountable and Transparent | Corrections are published prominently with a timestamp; methodology notes are attached to investigative pieces; the CC0 license is disclosed on every page. |

### 7.2 Kovach and Rosenstiel's Ten Elements

The ten elements are addressed across the treatise body: the obligation to truth and the discipline of verification through Section 1 and the consensus values floor; loyalty to citizens through the no-paywall, CC0 framing; independence from those covered through the funder- and source-independence commitments; the role of independent monitor of power through the accountability-of-power value of the floor; the forum for public criticism through the corrections and reader-correspondence commitments; and the citizen-rights element through the publication's open, forkable design.

### 7.3 Reuters Trust Principles

Main Street Independent aligns with Trust Principle 2 (integrity, independence, freedom from bias) through its published governance and disclosure commitments, with Principle 3 (unbiased and reliable news) through its verification protocol and editorial process, and with Principle 4 (regard for many interests) through its community-coverage policy. As a single-publication CC0 entity, it does not require the equivalent of Trust Principles 1 and 5 (corporate governance and competitive maintenance).

### 7.4 AP Statement Operational Provisions

Main Street Independent adopts AP's operational standards on anonymous sources (manager approval; explanation of anonymity in the story), gifts (refused above nominal value), political activity (disclosed for editorial contributors), and corrections (prompt, prominent, dated). Where the publication's practice diverges, the divergence is noted in the treatise body.

### 7.5 NYT Guidelines on Integrity

The publication adopts the Guidelines' rebuttal commitment ("we seek and publish a response from anyone criticized in our pages") and the corrections commitment in identical operational form. Its corrections-and-standards function is analogous to the Times' Standards editor.

### 7.6 BBC Due Accuracy / Due Impartiality

The publication adopts the "due" qualifier explicitly: in its working framework, accuracy and fairness are weighed against the subject and nature of the content, the audience expectation, and the available evidence. This is the operational basis for refusing to give equal time to demonstrably false claims while maintaining fairness to good-faith disagreement.

### 7.7 IFCN and Trust Project Indicators

Where the publication publishes fact-checks, the work is conducted under IFCN's five commitments. It implements the Trust Project Indicators applicable to a single-publication CC0 site, including author bios, type-of-work labels, citations and references, and a published corrections policy. Schema.org news markup is applied to every published piece.

### 7.8 Where Main Street Independent Diverges and Why

The publication's practice diverges from inherited standards in three structural respects, each articulated in the treatise body:

1. **Open-license publication (CC0).** No legacy standard contemplates public-domain dedication of news content; the CC0 practice is original to the publication.
2. **AI-and-contributor model.** The inherited standards assume professional newsroom employment relationships; the publication's AI-and-contributor model requires modified verification, conflict-of-interest, and accountability structures.
3. **Selective application of wire-service-era principles.** Several inherited standards (for example, the Reuters Trust Principles' wire-service context) apply only loosely; the publication applies them by analogy where useful and disregards them where inapplicable.

---

## Bibliography

### Primary Source Documents (Codes, Statements, Handbooks, Guidelines)

- Society of Professional Journalists. *SPJ Code of Ethics*. Adopted 1996; revised 2014. Available at https://www.spj.org/spj-code-of-ethics/ and as PDF at https://www.spj.org/pdf/spj-code-of-ethics.pdf.
- Society of Professional Journalists. *Position Papers*, including "Using the SPJ Code." Available at https://www.spj.org/ethics.asp.
- Reuters / Thomson Reuters. *Handbook of Journalism*. 3rd online edition. Available at https://www.handbookreuters.com/. Earlier public PDF mirror: https://www.mediareform.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Reuters_Handbook_of_Journalism.pdf.
- Thomson Reuters. *The Trust Principles*. Established 1941; reaffirmed 2008. Available at https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en/about-us/trust-principles.html.
- The Associated Press. *Statement of News Values and Principles*. Edited by Tom Kent (most recent prior version 2020); updated periodically. Available at https://www.ap.org/about/news-values-and-principles/. Archive at https://members.newsleaders.org/resources-ethics-ap.
- The Associated Press. *AP News Values: AI Guidelines*. August 2023. Garance Burke, lead author of AI Stylebook chapter.
- The Associated Press. *Social Media Guidelines for AP Employees*. Revised May 2013. Available at https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/welcome/comm409/001/common/corefiles/social-media-guidelines_tcm28-9832.pdf.
- The New York Times. *Guidelines on Our Integrity*. 1999, derivative of 1998 Newsroom Integrity Statement. Archive at https://members.newsleaders.org/resources-ethics-nyinteg.
- The New York Times. *Ethical Journalism: A Handbook of Values and Practices for the News and Opinion Departments*. 2008, periodically revised.
- The New York Times. *Policy on Confidential Sources*. 2004.
- BBC. *Editorial Guidelines*. 2025 edition. Available at https://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/.
- International Fact-Checking Network. *Code of Principles*. Launched 15 September 2016, Poynter Institute. Available at https://www.ifcncodeofprinciples.poynter.org/. Detailed commitments at https://ifcncodeofprinciples.poynter.org/the-commitments.
- The Trust Project. *Trust Indicators* and FAQ. Available at https://thetrustproject.org/faq/ and https://thetrustproject.org/about/.
- Schema.org. *Markup for News* technical vocabulary. Available at https://schema.org/docs/news.html.
- American Society of Newspaper Editors. *Canons of Journalism*. 1923. Adopted by SPJ predecessor 1926.
- Williams, Walter. *The Journalist's Creed*. 1914. University of Missouri School of Journalism. Available at https://journalism.missouri.edu/the-j-school/the-j-school-legacy/.

### Restrictively Copyrighted Reference Works (cited but not quoted at length)

- The Associated Press. *The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law*. Annual editions. Available at https://www.apstylebook.com/.
- Siegal, Allan M., and William G. Connolly. *The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage*. 5th ed. New York: Crown / Three Rivers / Penguin Random House, 2015. ISBN 978-1-101-90544-9.

### Scholarly Books

- Commission on Freedom of the Press (Hutchins Commission). *A Free and Responsible Press: A General Report on Mass Communications — Newspapers, Radio, Motion Pictures, Magazines, and Books*. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947. Available at https://archive.org/details/freeresponsiblep0000comm.
- Siebert, Fred S., Theodore Peterson, and Wilbur Schramm. *Four Theories of the Press: The Authoritarian, Libertarian, Social Responsibility, and Soviet Communist Concepts of What the Press Should Be and Do*. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956. https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p724213.
- Kovach, Bill, and Tom Rosenstiel. *The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect*. New York: Crown, 2001; 2nd ed. Three Rivers Press, 2007 (ISBN 978-0307346704); 3rd ed. 2014; 4th ed. 2021 (Crown / Penguin Random House, ISBN 978-0593239353). https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/671513/the-elements-of-journalism-revised-and-updated-4th-edition-by-bill-kovach-and-tom-rosenstiel/.
- Mencher, Melvin. *News Reporting and Writing*. McGraw-Hill, 1st ed. 1977; 12th ed. 2010 (ISBN 978-0073511993).
- Brooks, Brian S., George Kennedy, Daryl R. Moen, Don Ranly, John R. Bender, and Kathryn T. Stofer (the Missouri Group). *News Reporting and Writing*. Bedford / St. Martin's, 1st ed. 1980; 10th ed. 2010 (ISBN 978-0312618117); 12th ed. 2018.
- Brooks, Kennedy, Moen, Ranly et al. *Telling the Story: The Convergence of Print, Broadcast and Online Media*. Bedford / St. Martin's, multiple editions.
- Farrar, Ronald T. *A Creed for My Profession: Walter Williams, Journalist to the World*. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998. ISBN 978-0826211743.
- Lippmann, Walter. *Liberty and the News*. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920.
- Lippmann, Walter. *Public Opinion*. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1922.
- Hallin, Daniel C., and Paolo Mancini. *Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics*. Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN 978-0521543088.
- Christians, Clifford G., Theodore L. Glasser, Denis McQuail, Kaarle Nordenstreng, and Robert A. White. *Normative Theories of the Media: Journalism in Democratic Societies*. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009.
- Bates, Stephen. *An Aristocracy of Critics: Luce, Hutchins, Niebuhr, and the Committee That Redefined Freedom of the Press*. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020. ISBN 978-0300181456.
- Sullivan, Margaret. *Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) from an Ink-Stained Life*. New York: St. Martin's, 2022.
- Brown, Fred. *Journalism Ethics: A Casebook of Professional Conduct for News Media*. 5th ed. Marion Street Press, 2020.

### Journal Articles and Monographs

- Blanchard, Margaret A. "The Hutchins Commission, The Press and the Responsibility Concept." *Journalism Monographs* 49 (May 1977).
- Peterson, Theodore. "The Social Responsibility Theory of the Press." In Siebert, Peterson, and Schramm, *Four Theories of the Press*, 1956.
- Lyons, Louis M. "A Free and Responsible Press: A Review of the Free Press Report." *Nieman Reports*, April 1947.
- Cunningham, Brent. "Re-thinking Objectivity." *Columbia Journalism Review*, July/August 2003.
- Cools, Hannes, and Nick Diakopoulos. "Generative AI in the Newsroom: Analysis of newsroom AI policies." Generative AI in the Newsroom Project, Northwestern University, 2023.
- Becker, Kim Björn, Felix Simon, and Christopher Crum. Preprint study of AI policies at 52 news organizations, SocArXiv, September 2023.

### Journalism Criticism and Press Commentary

- Rosen, Jay. *PressThink* (blog). Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, New York University. Available at https://pressthink.org/. Especially:
  - "The View from Nowhere: Questions and Answers." 10 November 2010. https://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-questions-and-answers/.
  - "What I Think I Know About Journalism." 26 April 2011. https://pressthink.org/2011/04/what-i-think-i-know-about-journalism/.
  - "Battleship Newspaper." 15 June 2020. https://pressthink.org/2020/06/battleship-newspaper/.
  - "The 'here's where we're coming from' statement in journalism." 10 November 2021. https://pressthink.org/2021/11/the-heres-where-were-coming-from-statement-in-journalism/.
- Sullivan, Margaret. *American Crisis* newsletter (Substack). Available at https://margaretsullivan.substack.com/. Including "An ugly case of 'false balance' in the New York Times." September 2024. https://margaretsullivan.substack.com/p/an-ugly-case-of-false-balance-in.
- Sullivan, Margaret. *New York Times* Public Editor columns, 2012–2016.
- Sullivan, Margaret. *Washington Post* media columns, 2016–2022.
- Spayd, Liz. *New York Times* Public Editor columns, 2016–2017.
- Oremus, Will. "Liz Spayd is failing as the New York Times public editor." *Slate*, 11 April 2017. https://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/04/liz_spayd_is_failing_as_the_new_york_times_public_editor.html.
- Pope, Kyle, et al. "New York Times public editor Liz Spayd on decision to eliminate her position." *Columbia Journalism Review*, 2 June 2017. https://www.cjr.org/analysis/liz-spayd-public-editor-new-york-times.php.
- Lowery, Wesley. "A Reckoning Over Objectivity, Led by Black Journalists." *New York Times*, 23 June 2020.
- Weinberger, David. "Transparency is the new objectivity." Joho the Blog, 19 July 2009. https://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2009/07/19/transparency-is-the-new-objectivity/.
- Burke, Garance. Interview on AP AI Stylebook chapter. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2023. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/focus-humans-not-robots-tips-author-ap-guidelines-how-cover-ai.
- Mahadevan, Alex. "Associated Press cements the AI era with newsroom guidance." Poynter, August 2023. https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2023/new-ap-stylebook-guidelines-artificial-intelligence-chatgpt/.
- Fletcher, Paul. "The SPJ Code of Ethics at 110." *Quill*, 1 October 2019. https://www.quillmag.com/2019/10/01/the-spj-code-of-ethics-at-110/.
- Bukro, Casey. "A Code of Ethics All Your Own." Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists, 22 October 2015. https://ethicsadvicelineforjournalists.org/2015/10/22/online-news-crowdsource-ethics-code/.
- Organization of News Ombuds and Standards Editors. "Our History." https://newsombuds.org/about-ono/history/.

### Court Cases (operational background, Section 5)

- *New York Times Co. v. Sullivan*, 376 U.S. 254 (1964).
- *Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc.*, 418 U.S. 323 (1974).

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