OUR policies and standards
All NEWSWELL sites follow the Society of Professional Journalists ethical guidelines and abide by these four overarching principles:
1
SEEK TRUTH AND REPORT IT
Ethical journalism should be accurate and fair. Journalists should be honest and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.
2
MINIMIZE HARM
Ethical journalism treats sources, subjects, colleagues and members of the public as human beings deserving of respect.
3
ACT INDEPENDENTLY
The highest and primary obligation of ethical journalism is to serve the public.
4
BE ACCOUNTABLE AND TRANSPARENT
Ethical journalism means taking responsibility for one’s work and explaining one’s decisions to the public.
EDITORIAL INDEPENDENCE
We subscribe to standards of editorial independence adopted by the Institute for Nonprofit News as follows:
News managers within our organization retain full authority over editorial content to protect the best journalistic and business interests of our organization. We maintain a firewall between news coverage decisions and sources of all revenue. Acceptance of financial support does not constitute implied or actual endorsement of donors or their products, services or opinions.
We accept gifts, grants and sponsorships from individuals and organizations for the general support of our activities, but our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support.
Our organization may consider donations to support the coverage of particular topics, but our organization maintains editorial control of the coverage. We will cede no right of review or influence of editorial content, nor of unauthorized distribution of editorial content.
Our organization will make public all donors who give a total of $5,000 or more per year. We will accept anonymous donations for general support only if it is clear that sufficient safeguards have been put into place that the expenditure of that donation is made independently by our organization and in compliance with INN’s Membership Standards.
INCLUSIVE EXCELLENCE
NEWSWELL sites aim to reflect the diversity of the communities they serve in their staff and contributors, editorial choices and coverage priorities.
DONOR TRANSPARENCY
We are committed to transparency in every aspect of funding our organization. We accept gifts, grants and sponsorships from individuals, organizations and foundations to help with our general operations, coverage of specific topics and special projects. Our news judgments are made independently—not based on or influenced by donors. We do not give supporters the right to assign, review or edit content.
We will make public all donors who give $5,000 or more per year. As a nonprofit, we will not accept donations from political parties, elected officials or candidates actively seeking public office. We will not accept donations from sources who, deemed by leadership, present a conflict of interest with our work or compromise our independence.
FINANCIALS and GOVERNANCE
Form 990 is the Internal Revenue Service’s designation for the tax return that most public charities are required by law to submit annually. Information contained in the form includes a summary of the organization’s activities, assets, receipts, expenditures, and compensation of directors, officers and certain employees.
NEWSWELL 990 forms will be posted here as they become available.
NEWSWELL is a fiscally sponsored project and pre-approved grantee of the Arizona State University Foundation for a New American University, a tax-exempt public charity under Section 501 (c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. NEWSWELL was incorporated as a nonprofit on March 29, 2024, in Arizona. NEWSWELL is funded by individual contributions and foundation grants. We are guided by a board of directors.
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