Purpose

Canyons News serves its community by providing accurate, fair, independent, and responsible journalism. This policy establishes the ethical standards that guide our reporting, editing, publishing, and interactions with the public.

These principles apply to everyone contributing journalism on behalf of Canyons News, including staff members, editors, freelancers, interns, photographers, videographers, contractors, and volunteers.

1. Accuracy and Verification

Accuracy is our highest priority.

Canyons News will:

• Verify information before publication using reliable sources, documents, direct observation, and other appropriate evidence.
• Clearly distinguish confirmed facts from allegations, estimates, opinions, and analysis.
• Seek original or primary sources whenever reasonably possible.
• Attribute information so readers can understand where it came from.
• Use anonymous sources only when the information is important, cannot reasonably be obtained on the record, and the source has a legitimate reason to remain unnamed.
• Avoid publishing rumors, manipulated material, or unverified social-media claims as fact.
• Provide headlines, photographs, captions, quotations, and promotional posts that accurately represent the underlying story.

Speed does not excuse inaccuracy. When facts remain uncertain, we will say so clearly.

2. Fairness and Context

Canyons News will report issues in context and make a genuine effort to represent relevant perspectives.

We will:

• Give people and organizations facing meaningful criticism or allegations a reasonable opportunity to respond before publication.
• Describe unsuccessful attempts to obtain a response when that information is relevant.
• Avoid false balance. Fairness does not require treating unsupported claims as equivalent to well-established facts.
• Include the context readers need to understand quotations, statistics, images, and events.
• Avoid stereotyping people based on race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, immigration status, socioeconomic status, political affiliation, or other personal characteristics.
• Mention personal characteristics only when they are relevant to the story.

3. Independence and Conflicts of Interest

Editorial decisions must be made in the public interest, free from improper influence.

Contributors must disclose to an editor any financial, professional, political, personal, or family interest that could affect—or reasonably appear to affect—their work. Depending on the circumstances, disclosure, reassignment, or recusal may be required.

Canyons News contributors should not:

• Accept payment, gifts, discounts, travel, meals, services, or special treatment from sources or subjects when doing so could compromise independence.
• Allow advertisers, donors, sponsors, public officials, school administrators, advocacy groups, or other outside parties to dictate editorial conclusions.
• use unpublished information obtained through journalism for personal or financial benefit.
• Report on organizations, campaigns, businesses, or disputes in which they are actively involved without prior editorial approval and appropriate disclosure.
• Endorse candidates or political causes in their capacity as Canyons News journalists.

Any unavoidable benefit of more than nominal value should be disclosed promptly to an editor.

4. News, Opinion, and Advertising

Canyons News will clearly distinguish among news reporting, analysis, opinion, sponsored material, and advertising.

• News stories will be reported and written independently.
• Opinion pieces will be clearly labeled and should be based on accurate information.
• Sponsored or paid content will be prominently identified.
• Advertisers and sponsors will not receive favorable coverage or advance approval of editorial material.
• Corrections and legitimate reporting decisions will not be influenced by commercial relationships.

5. Sources and Transparency

Journalists should identify themselves as working for Canyons News when gathering information, except in rare circumstances involving a compelling public interest and prior editorial approval.

We will generally identify sources by name. Before granting anonymity, an editor should know the source’s identity and consider:

• Whether the information serves a significant public interest.
• Whether the source has direct knowledge.
• Whether the information can be independently verified.
• Whether the source may have an undisclosed motive.
• Whether the information is available through an on-the-record source.

We will describe an anonymous source as specifically as possible without exposing the person’s identity. We will not knowingly mislead readers about a source.

Promises of confidentiality must be made carefully and honored.

6. Quotations, Editing, and Attribution

Quotations must preserve the speaker’s meaning.

Canyons News may correct minor grammatical slips or remove verbal fillers when the change does not alter meaning. Material changes, reconstructed quotations, or combining statements presented as one continuous quotation are not permitted.

We will credit the reporting, images, research, ideas, and language of others. Plagiarism, fabrication, and deliberate misrepresentation are grounds for disciplinary action and may result in removal of the work.

7. Privacy, Harm, and Compassion

The public’s right to know must be weighed against foreseeable harm.

We will show particular care when reporting on:

• Children and other vulnerable people.
• Victims and survivors of crime, abuse, harassment, or trauma.
• Suicide, self-harm, and mental-health crises.
• Medical information and private family matters.
• Grief, death, and graphic violence.
• People who may not understand the consequences of speaking publicly.

Canyons News will ordinarily avoid identifying victims of sexual violence without their informed consent. We will not publish graphic or disturbing material merely to attract attention.

Public accessibility does not automatically make information newsworthy. We will consider whether publishing a person’s address, phone number, personal messages, medical details, or other sensitive information serves a legitimate public interest.

8. Reporting on Children

When reporting on minors, we will consider the child’s age, understanding, safety, and long-term interests.

Parental or guardian permission should ordinarily be obtained for interviews involving sensitive or personal subjects. Permission may not be necessary when a minor is participating in a public event or making routine, non-sensitive comments, subject to applicable law and organizational rules.

A child’s welfare takes priority over competitive advantage.

9. Photography, Video, Audio, and Digital Media

Visual and audio journalism must represent events honestly.

Canyons News will not stage, recreate, or materially alter news events without clear disclosure. Routine adjustments such as cropping, color correction, or exposure correction are acceptable when they do not change the factual meaning of an image.

Illustrations, composites, reenactments, and generated media must be clearly labeled. Captions must accurately explain what an image shows and, when relevant, when it was created.

We will verify user-generated content before publication and seek permission when appropriate.

10. Artificial Intelligence

Artificial-intelligence tools may assist with limited tasks such as transcription, organization, translation, data analysis, or brainstorming, subject to editorial oversight.

AI may not be treated as a source or final authority. Journalists remain responsible for verifying every published fact, quotation, citation, and conclusion.

Canyons News will not:

• Publish AI-generated reporting without meaningful human review.
• Use AI to fabricate quotations, sources, events, images, audio, or video.
• submit confidential, unpublished, or sensitive source material to an external AI service without authorization and appropriate safeguards.
• Present synthetic media as authentic documentation.

Material use of generative AI should be disclosed when readers would reasonably consider it relevant to evaluating the work.

11. Social Media and Personal Conduct

Ethical duties extend to social-media activity connected to a contributor’s role at Canyons News.

Contributors should:

• Avoid sharing unverified claims.
• Correct significant errors made through their professional accounts.
• Refrain from harassment, threats, discriminatory conduct, or disclosure of confidential information.
• Avoid online activity that creates a serious conflict of interest or undermines their ability to cover an issue fairly.
• Make clear when personal opinions are their own, while recognizing that disclaimers do not eliminate conflicts.

12. Corrections and Accountability

Canyons News will correct significant errors promptly, clearly, and transparently.

Corrections should:

• Identify what was wrong.
• Provide the correct information.
• Appear with or be linked to the original material.
• Avoid silently changing a substantive error.

Minor spelling, grammar, or formatting changes that do not affect meaning may be corrected without a formal notice. Developing stories may be updated as new facts emerge, with meaningful updates identified when appropriate.

Requests for corrections will be evaluated based on evidence, not pressure or dissatisfaction with accurate coverage.

13. Removal and Unpublishing

Published material is part of the public record and will not ordinarily be removed solely because it has become inconvenient or embarrassing.

Canyons News may consider correction, updating, anonymization, limiting search visibility, or removal when:

• The material is substantially inaccurate.
• Continued publication creates serious, disproportionate harm.
• A person was a minor or especially vulnerable at the time.
• Legal, safety, or compelling ethical considerations support the change.

Decisions will be made by an editor and documented internally.

14. Embargoes and Off-the-Record Agreements

Terms such as “off the record,” “on background,” and “under embargo” must be agreed upon before information is shared. Sources cannot unilaterally make previously provided information confidential.

Journalists should clarify the meaning and conditions of any agreement. Embargoes will be honored when voluntarily accepted, unless an editor determines that an overriding public-interest concern requires otherwise.

15. Deception and Undercover Reporting

Canyons News will not ordinarily misrepresent a journalist’s identity or use hidden recording methods.

Such techniques may be considered only when:

• The information is of substantial public importance.
• Conventional reporting methods are unlikely to obtain it.
• The anticipated public benefit outweighs the potential harm.
• The editor responsible for publication approves the approach in advance.
• The method complies with applicable law.

The use of deception or concealed recording should be disclosed to the audience when doing so does not create further harm.

16. Community Relationships

Canyons News welcomes criticism, corrections, story ideas, and discussion from its community. Relationships with sources and community members should remain professional and should not guarantee favorable coverage.

We will listen seriously to concerns about accuracy, fairness, privacy, representation, and harm. Ethical accountability does not mean granting subjects control over coverage.

17. Public Interest

For purposes of this policy, the public interest may include:

• Exposing wrongdoing, corruption, abuse, or significant incompetence.
• Protecting public health or safety.
• Holding powerful people and institutions accountable.
• Helping the community make informed civic decisions.
• Preventing the public from being materially misled.
• Documenting matters of significant community concern.

Public curiosity alone is not necessarily a public interest.

18. Enforcement and Ethical Review

Questions about this policy should be raised with the appropriate editor as early as possible. Difficult decisions should consider accuracy, newsworthiness, independence, proportionality, foreseeable harm, available alternatives, and transparency.

Suspected violations will be reviewed fairly. Responses may include clarification, correction, additional training, reassignment, removal of material, suspension, or termination of a contributor’s relationship with Canyons News, depending on the seriousness of the conduct.

No contributor should be penalized for raising a good-faith ethical concern.

19. Commitment

This policy cannot anticipate every situation. When the rules do not provide an obvious answer, Canyons News will act consistently with its central commitments: seek truth, minimize unnecessary harm, remain independent, explain important decisions, and accept responsibility for its work.

This policy should be reviewed periodically and updated as journalistic practices, technology, law, and community needs evolve.