Editorial Standards
The standards applied to reporting, sourcing, attribution, bylines, images and corrections.
Reporting and attribution
Original reporting should identify the journalist responsible for the work. Information first reported by another publication is attributed to that publication, and aggregation should link readers to the original reporting rather than obscuring where the information came from.
National rankings, projections and other derivative items are treated as briefs when the underlying news belongs to another outlet. They should not receive the same editorial weight as first-hand reporting, interviews, document reporting or original analysis.
Primary sources
Legal, NCAA, conference, financial and governance stories should rely on the best available primary material. Court orders, filings, official agreements, public records and governing documents should be linked directly when public access is available. Social posts and secondary reporting can provide context, but they should not substitute for a primary document that the newsroom has and can responsibly publish or link.
Images and media
Editorial images should be original, licensed, supplied for media use or otherwise used with clear permission and attribution. Search-engine thumbnails and third-party image-cache URLs are not acceptable substitutes for a traceable source.
Editing and accountability
Before publication, stories should be checked for the correct author, URL slug, headline, category, tags, featured image, metadata, source links and internal links. Published work remains the responsibility of the named author and The Scarlet Standard.