The goal of The Wooster Voice is to provide news, opinion, entertainment and sports writing with accuracy and integrity to the Wooster community; however, mistakes do occur in the production of a newspaper. The following are our ethical guidelines and policies. Primarily, we will always strive to work within the bounds of journalistic integrity.
In general, our standards for ethical journalism are based on those laid out in the Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics. This code shall be referenced throughout our policies and can be found here.
Story Removal/Retraction Policy
At The Wooster Voice, we strive to be transparent with all aspects of journalism, including interviewing, writing, editing and specific policies. In the wake of ongoing political challenges in the U.S and abroad, the Voice has experienced an increase in the number of requests for retractions. While we navigate this political landscape and the ongoing changes and threats to journalistic ethics and freedom of the press, we maintain our responsibility to you, The College of Wooster community, to a journalistic front to report on what is factual and pertinent.
When someone is interviewed for the Voice, our interviewers have been trained to always identify themselves as press and to communicate to the interviewee where and how their quotes will be used. The Voice has thus far been liberal with our retraction policies when presented with issues surrounding safety, taking requests to a hearing board made up of our entire staff.
In the past, the newspaper’s official retraction policy has been to retract any or all parts of an article if its content was factually incorrect or plagiarized, a source was misled about the intention of the article, the source’s words were misconstrued to the point where their overall meaning was diminished or the journalist conducting the interview did not maintain journalistic ethics. While this has been our policy in the past, a revised policy has been made to account for the current concerns among the campus community.
Sometimes, we come across issues with retraction statements and whether or not one’s quote, name or any identifying features can be deleted from an article. As previously stated, retractions have become more pronounced in recent years, as marginalized communities become more targeted. These actions have pushed staff, faculty and students to think more heavily about their safety at the College.
Our staff has decided that in order to maintain journalistic integrity the Voice will be adopting a more strict policy regarding retractions. To maintain transparency we have revised our retraction and interview policies as follows:
Any individual agreeing to be interviewed by The Wooster Voice enters into a binding agreement wherein the interviewee consents to their words and expressed ideas to be printed/used, acknowledges that their quote will be published in a publicly available newspaper (both digitally and physically) and agree to the inherent risks upon publication such as verbal or physical retaliation by readers, further publication by other news outlets, etc.
Individuals facing safety concerns regarding their appearance in an article may bring this to the Voice staff’s attention, understanding that any statements made to the Voice staff were agreed upon before publication. If there is an adjustment to a person’s name, pronouns or role that needs to be made, interviewees are to inform the Voice staff member they are talking to before the interview is finished. This may impact how your quote is included, if at all.
Any adjustment asked for after the interview occurs is dependent on the timeline and may not result in changes unless asked for three days in advance of the publication date by the end of the business day. This is due to the Voice’s copyediting and layout process, which occurs every Tuesday at 4 p.m.
Plagiarism and Reproductions Policy
The Voice publishes only original content, unless explicitly expressed. Any article which has been previously published in another outlet, paper, or online source is ineligible for publication in The Wooster Voice. This includes self-plagiarism or republication of articles which have been previously published in another media source. If the editorial staff of the Voice becomes aware of any such misrepresentation of work as an author’s own, it will be retracted or removed from the website or print publication.
Correction Policy
Corrections will be issued for errors such as misspelled names or incorrect identification in a photo. If made aware of a correction, we will aim to publish notification of the error the following week, in accordance with the Ohio Revised Code (2739.14, Publishing corrected statements).
Interview Policy
Staff members should always indicate clearly when they are conducting an interview so that the individual being interviewed understands that what they say is on the record. Interviewees should understand the story they are commenting on. Staff members should honor “off the record” requests that occur during an interview, although requests that occur after an interview are not considered binding. They should also make every effort to take accurate notes or record conversations so that the quotes that appear in stories are as precise as possible. Interviewees should not be recorded without their consent. Although under the Ohio Revised Code (2933.52, Interception of wire, oral or electronic communications), only one party is required to give consent for recording to be considered legal, it is our policy as a publication to gain consent from all individuals being recorded. Further, consenting to an interview does not imply that the individual is also consenting to be recorded. Staff members should be explicit when they plan to record.
Individuals who agree to be interviewed should understand that their quotes may be used in a Voice article. If the staff member who conducts the interview has followed the guidelines above, then interviewees should not expect to be able to retract their comments (before or after press time) unless they give a compelling reason. By agreeing to an interview, the interviewee is agreeing to have their name and quotes used in a Voice article. Anonymity will only be granted to interviewees under extremely limited circumstances, such as the possibility of endangerment toward the individual. The editors-in-chief, in consultation with our adviser, will decide upon requests for anonymity.
Viewpoints Policy
Although we strive to provide a platform for all students to express their opinions in the Viewpoints section, the Voice will not publish viewpoints that personally attack an individual, or which disrespect the human dignity of another person or group of people. We will not publish discriminatory or false information in a viewpoint, and in all viewpoints that make factual claims, we will conduct fact-checking to the best of our ability. If we find that the facts of a viewpoint are inaccurate, we reserve the right not to publish it. We also reserve the right to condense and edit viewpoints for clarity and grammar, although we will strive to preserve the piece’s intent. Uncondensed viewpoints in their entirety will be posted on our site. The opinions expressed in viewpoints are not those of the staff as a whole. Responses to viewpoints are welcome and encouraged, but again, we will not publish personal character attacks.
To ensure a diversity of voices and perspectives highlighted within the Voice, all contributing writers and editors will be limited to a maximum of three Viewpoints per semester.
Election Year Policy:
We recognize that election years are a time of heightened polarization in which members of our community may feel especially strongly about certain issues. As always, The Wooster Voice is committed to protecting Freedom of Speech and Expression for our writers. That being said, in an effort to maintain goodwill amongst our campus community, we will be doing our best to balance speech and expression protections with respect for human dignity. As always, we will not print personal attacks against individuals or Viewpoints that disrespect the dignity of any group based on identity characteristics.
Staff Hiring and Firing
Editors-in-chief and managing editors of the Voice are selected by the Publications Committee. All other editorial board and staff writer positions are left to the discretion of the editors-in-chief. The editors are in charge of hiring their staff and may release staff members who cannot complete the duties required of an editorial board member. Section editors and staff writers are expected to comport themselves with integrity when they are working on a story for the Voice, including all accepted standards of journalistic practice as laid out here and in the Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics.
Contributing Writer Policy
Contributing writers are not considered staff members of The Voice, but their writing is always welcome and appreciated. Contributing writers are expected to comport themselves with integrity when they are working on a story for the Voice, including all accepted standards of journalistic practice. Anyone who writes for the Voice, even only once, is expected to follow all standards of journalistic integrity as outlined here and in the Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics; for the duration of their reporting, contributing writers represent the Voice and should comport themselves accordingly. Those contributing writers who are not familiar with journalistic practice should ask the appropriate section editor for advice before proceeding. With that in mind, however, the Voice cannot be held responsible for the actions of all contributing writers. The editors-in-chief reserve the right to ask contributing writers not to write again if they cannot meet the requirements stated above.
The editors will only release staff members for cause and will not do so in a manner that discriminates on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, gender expression, ability, or any opinions expressed by the individual in question.
The staff members of the Voice, particularly the editors-in-chief, reserve the right to refuse to publish any writing if it was gathered in an unethical manner, if it is inaccurate or if it is incomprehensible for some reason. We also reserve the right to edit all writing for grammar and clarity.