Code of Conduct: News
A code of conduct is a set of conventional principles that are considered binding on any person who is a member of a particular group. We are setting forth a set of rules that should guide freelancers and members of our editorial staff as well as our business partners. Adherence to these rules will serve to uphold our quality standards as well as protect our interactions with members of the public.
This Code underscores our editorial independence, integrity and high journalistic standards. The rules outlined under this code of conduct apply exclusively to our online offerings (and may expand to other components of the business – please check this page for updates). All employees, freelancers, contributors and other members of staff are mandated to adhere to these rules. This is to ensure complete compliance to editorial and professional standards required of a top-rated news publication.
Preparing content for publication
You must certainly conduct proper research and run factual checks before any story is handed in for publication. It might be essential to work closely with your editors or managers while conducting a research story in order to get things right. If you are not sure of what to do, speak to your superiors first before taking any actions.
While preparing a story for publication, you must ensure that:
- All the facts are correct and well-reported
- Necessary research is conducted to support your story
- You get approval from the subject of a story before running it
- The story is beyond reproach in all editorial and professional areas
It is necessary you remain up-to-date with public information so that you can easily research issues while covering related stories. If you are not sure how to proceed with anything, it is best you revert to the editor for clarifications; meanwhile, you must fully disclose any issues that could impact on the integrity of your stories to the editor before they are published.
Identify yourself while dealing with the public
It is important that you identify yourself as a journalist to anyone while working around them if they are central to your story. It may even be important for you to mention the publication you work for upfront before committing them to volunteer information to you. If it is not safe for you to do so, then you may proceed accordingly after getting approval from the editor.
It is not advisable that you intimidate or harrass anyone to get valuable information from them for your story. And where anyone asks you to stop questioning or photographing or videoing them, you must comply immediately. If they also ask that you do not contact them any further, you must comply accordingly.
If you are conducting enquiries in an environment where disaster or misfortune occurred, then you must approach people with sympathy and discretion. You must also obtain consent from the Dominica authorities before approaching anyone in the hospital or schools.
Attribution and online research
In a situation where a source tells you something damaging about another individual, it is important to get the reaction of the accused before running your story. Where someone is alleged of wrongdoing, you mustn’t take the word of your source for it but must corroborate it from another trustworthy source before submitting your story for publication.
And in a case where your source demands confidentiality, you must respect his privacy and not reveal his identity in your story.
If you are researching your materials online, be aware that not everything is free for you. Many online materials are protected by copyright. So you must obtain the consent of the copyright owner before using their online material. And where you are not able to reach the copyright owner, then you must fully attribute the content so that readers understand someone else who could be reached one way or the other owns it.
Where dealing with children, be sure they are of legal age before publishing what they say. And where they are not of age, then obtain the consent of whoever has legal custody over them before using their words.
You must allow persons connected with a story to respond to it before publishing your story – for balance. If a story is damaging to the reputation of any individual, you must allow them to respond to the allegations before publishing your story so that you have a balanced story.
If DOM767 publishes a story that turns out to be inaccurate, we may correct the error in subsequent publications together with an apology to the persons affected by the error. However, you as the reporter must not allow this to happen so that our brand does not appear cheap to our readers or become the subject of controversy.