Ethics, corrections & opinion
Ethics underpin our work.
News in the Grove operates under the guidelines of the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. There are about three dozen different guidelines, and they’re just a starting point for us.
Corrections
A human runs this publication, and humans regrettably make errors from time to time. Any errors will be corrected as quickly as possible with a note attached to the bottom of the original story the error occurred in, and we’ll also run a notice in our next newsletter with a correction.
Did we %$!% something up? Email chashundley@newsinthegrove.com and I'll take a look!
Bias & balance
Any news publication that says they operate without bias is lying, to you or themselves.
News in the Grove does not give "equal time" to liars and bad actors.
Our policy is to seek truth first, and use the tools of journalism—public documents, verified photographs and videos, interviews and data—to find the facts. Then we lay it out for you to see.
I also believe it's important to disclose bias. Here's ours:
- We are unabashedly a pro-democracy news site
- We believe governments should be transparent and as a newspaper will advocate strongly for open meetings laws and public records laws, because that’s how we are able to conduct watchdog journalism
- We believe that democracy is strongest when citizens actively participate, be that through voting, making their voices heard in other ways, and joining local boards and commissions to help '“steer the ship.”
- We believe that people in power—be that in the public or private sector— should be held accountable for their actions.
- We stand against racism and bigotry.
- We believe news organizations should pay their journalists a living wage and treat them well, and stand firmly against the ravages of hedge-fund media organizations that treat their employees like garbage.
Endorsement policy
We don’t make political endorsements, and we don’t opine on local topics with two exceptions: Legislation that threatens or bolsters access to public records and open government meetings or otherwise has an impact on the journalism industry; and topics that represent an existential threat to lives of members of our community.
Our volunteer column writers are asked to keep their political opinions out of their writing as much as they are able, but because they are writing from their own experience on topics they are experts on, we don’t hold them to this same standard.
The difference between a News Story and a Column
In general, we publish two types of “articles” at News in the Grove: News stories and columns.
News
News stories are “hard news” in that they deal with the facts of a story, happening, or instance. A story about a car crash, a public interest story about a person doing something interesting in Forest Grove, a story about a meeting of the Forest Grove School Board fall into this category. They’re written with the intent to inform and allow you, the reader, to walk away with knowledge and that’s it. We’ll always seek comment from anyone involved in a story, seek to lay out the facts as we understand them from firsthand sources, and vet the information contained within a story.
We also partner with two wire services in Oregon. Think the Associated Press, except they're local!
They are the Oregon Capital Chronicle, a nonprofit digital newsroom that focuses on the Oregon Legislature and news from state agencies, and the more recently formed Oregon Journalism Project, which uses the work of several writers, including Pulitzer Prize winner Nigel Jaquiss.
As a hyperlocal publication, we publish only a small fraction of their work, selecting stories that have a direct connection to our readers because of geography; or for very significant statewide news.
Column
A column is a broader category of article that is usually derived from a perspective or opinion based angle. For us, it’s also any article we or another organization that follows strong journalism standards hasn’t vetted. Columns usually come from outside sources like community writers, columns from local government agencies and public service announcements.
Examples include the Forest Grove Police Log, which is always written by the FGPD, but not independently verified by our newsroom, or a community column about gardening, or our already popular history column, which simply includes hundred-year old newspaper clips from historic area newspapers.