Editorial Standards

Who we are writing for

• Reader first

  The reader is the only customer. A story about a sponsor runs and names the relationship.

• Oklahoma first

  National stories run only when they land in Oklahoma; the Oklahoma angle leads.

• Complications stay in

  Facts that complicate the story's framing stay in the story; they are not trimmed to a footnote.

• All 77 counties

  Every county gets the same care; the desk tracks coverage by county.

• Perspective in selection, not copy

  The publication's conservative perspective shows in which stories are chosen and which questions are asked, never in how facts are written.

• Promises are true when published

  Every claim the site makes about itself is true on the day it is published, and changes the day it stops being true.

Sources and attribution

• Every claim sourced

  Every factual claim traces to a listed, reachable source. A claim with no source is cut, not softened.

• Two sources, one a record

  A story lists at least two sources where they exist; a single-source story says so in the copy.

• Credit and link, never reproduce

  When another outlet reports something first, The Colony summarises it in its own words in at most two sentences and names the outlet in the copy. A link is included only when the source itself — not a competing outlet's write-up of it — is the primary material worth sending readers to.

• Copyright risk

  Another outlet's text, imagery or reporting is never reproduced beyond fair quotation; what it reported is summarised in The Colony's own words.

• No anonymous sources

  Anonymous sources are not used. An unnamed person is not a source; an unproducible document is not a document.

• Social posts are their own words only

  A private individual's post is a source only for their own words, with the person named.

• Report conflicts, don't pick

  When sources disagree, the story reports both and the disagreement; a primary record settles it where one exists.

• Unverified allegation stated as fact

  A serious accusation against a named party is reported as an attributed claim from a document, filing or named source — after the person is asked for comment — never as established fact.

Reporting and opinion

• Characterisation without a source

  A named person, party, agency or body is characterised only in words attributed to a named source or document in the same passage.

• Opinion in the newsroom's voice

  The desk states no judgment, prediction or evaluation of its own; it reports the judgments named sources made.

• No opinion lane

  The Colony publishes reporting. There is no opinion lane; if one is added it is labelled on the page, in the URL and in the byline.

• Questions may lean; answers do not

  The questions put to the record may reflect a conservative reader's concerns; the answers are reported whatever they turn out to be.

• Headlines follow the copy rule

  Headlines state what the record shows, attribute any claim, and carry no judgment word.

Political coverage

• Endorsement in the newsroom's voice

  Desk copy carries no endorsement of a candidate, ballot measure, bill or party as The Colony's own; positions taken by named sources are reported and attributed. Each editor is entitled to endorse whomever they believe in or whatever bill they believe is right, in their own name and in a labelled lane. Any official endorsement from The Colony itself is approved by the owner.

• Party and office on first mention

  Every officeholder and candidate is identified by party and office on first mention.

• Ideological labels are attributed

  'Conservative', 'liberal', 'progressive', 'moderate' are used of a person or group only when they use it of themselves or a named source applies it, attributed.

• Right of reply

  A candidate or official who is a story's subject is asked for comment before publication, and the story says whether they answered.

• Campaign claims checked in the same story

  Campaign claims are attributed and checked against the record in the same story; an uncheckable claim is called uncheckable.

• Outside ratings are not ours

  An outside group's rating or scorecard is never presented as The Colony's; when reported, the group is named and its funding described where public.

• Hosts' views are not the desk's

  Hosts and contributors may state views on their own shows; a desk story never carries those views as the desk's.

Language and tone

• No loaded adjectives

  Loaded adjectives do not appear in the desk's voice; inside an attributed quote they stay as spoken.

• No scare quotes

  A term in quotation marks is a quotation with a source; scare quotes are not used.

• Numbers carry their base

  Every figure carries its base: the year and budget for a dollar figure, the denominator for a percentage, the field for a rank.

• Names and titles

  People are called what they call themselves; title on first mention, surname after.

• Plain language

  Write plainly: a sentence a reader in any county can follow beats one that sounds like a release or a filing.

• Profanity and slurs

  Profanity and slurs appear only inside a quotation that is itself the news, once, with slurs rendered as the first letter and dashes.

Sensitive subjects

• Charged, accused, convicted

  A person is 'charged with', 'accused of' or 'arrested on suspicion of' until a court finds otherwise; the story says what the record says and no more.

• Minors

  Minors are never named as suspects; as victims only with a guardian's consent and never in sexual-offence cases.

• Protected attributes only when material

  Race, religion, sex, orientation, disability or immigration status is mentioned only when material to the story and sourced — never as colour.

• Suicide

  Suicide is reported without method or location detail, with a crisis line at the foot, and only when the death is of public consequence.

• Victims

  Crime victims are named only when public figures, when they have spoken publicly, or with consent; victims of sexual offences are never named.

• Protected-class targeting

  Never attack, demean or advocate harm against people for who they are.

• Violence or illegal content

  Nothing published incites or instructs violence or crime, or is itself unlawful to distribute.

Corrections

• Corrections at the top, dated, logged

  A correction sits at the top of the story, dated, and is logged on the public corrections page.

• What a correction is

  A correction is any change to a fact, figure, name, date or quotation; typos and style edits are not logged.

• Never quietly removed

  A story is unpublished only for a legal reason; errors are corrected in the open.

• Correction requests answered

  Anyone may request a correction through the published address. The two-business-day answer standard runs internally for its first weeks, to confirm it is holdable, before it is put in writing publicly.

• Re-run on standards change

  Standards are dated at the time of change. Stories published before a standard's effective date are not held to it retroactively; only the standards in force at the time of publication apply. A specific piece found to cause ongoing harm is corrected under the corrections rules, independent of any broader standards revision.

• Disputes noted while checked

  A named person's dispute of a fact is noted on the story while it is checked.

AI disclosure

• AI assistance disclosed on the page

  A story drafted with AI assistance says so on the page, under the byline, every time.

• No invented facts, quotes or sources

  AI may research, draft and structure; it may not invent a fact, a quote, a source or a document.

• A person reads every source

  Every source an AI-drafted story cites is opened and read by a person before publication.

• The desk is a desk, not a journalist

  The desk byline is a newsroom byline, never presented as a verified journalist.

• Generated images labelled, never passed off as photographs

  Images generated with Super Intelligence may be photo-realistic and may show real places and real, named people. Every one is labelled 'Illustration generated with Super Intelligence' where the reader sees it, is never captioned or described as a photograph, and is never presented as a record of something that happened.

• The audit flags; people decide

  The automated standards check flags; it never approves, removes or pulls a story to draft. A serious flag on an already-published story triggers immediate escalation to an editor or the owner for same-day review; if confirmed, a person corrects or unpublishes the story under the corrections rules, never the check itself.

• Provenance recorded

  The reader-facing disclosure stays binary — AI-assisted or not. Technical pipeline detail (model, version, prompt family) is logged internally by the desk for its own troubleshooting and pattern-tracking, and is not published with the story.

Images

• Subject match, not mood

  A picture matches the story's subject, not its mood.

• Nothing implied that was not reported

  No picture implies something the story did not report; a generated image never depicts the event itself.

• Real people in generated images only when labelled

  A generated image may show a real person when it is labelled 'Illustration generated with Super Intelligence'. It never shows a real person doing or saying something they did not do, or somewhere they were not, as if it happened. A photograph of a person is still credited, with permission or from a public record.

• Credit says who and how

  Every picture carries a credit naming who made it and how; a generated picture says so where the reader sees it.

• Geography is a factual claim

  A picture from outside Oklahoma is named as such; a stock frame is never captioned as a real place it is not.

• Alt text describes the picture

  Alt text describes the picture, not the story, and never argues the story's point.

Sports and small-town coverage

• Student athletes are minors first

  High-school athletes are named for what they did on the field, from the school's or OSSAA's record, and for nothing else without a parent's consent.

• Scores from the school or OSSAA

  Scores and standings come from the school, the OSSAA or a named outlet; scores sites are never scraped or cited as the record.

• Sports quotes attributed to the venue

  Coaches and players are quoted only from public posts, published interviews or the desk's own interviews, attributed to the venue.

• Recruiting from official announcements only

  Recruiting, transfers and eligibility are reported only from official announcements or the athlete's own public statement.

• The town is the subject

  A small-town story names the place with a sourced fact about it and treats the town as the subject, not a backdrop.

• Officials: public acts only

  Local officials are public figures for their public acts and private citizens for everything else; the desk covers the acts.

The Report Card

• Grades measure attendance, participation, record

  Report Card grades measure attendance, voting participation and the legislative record; they never grade a position.

• Votes are a record, not a score

  Key votes are shown as a record — how each legislator voted, linked to the roll call — with no credited right vote.

• The Report Card endorses no one

  The Report Card is never framed as who to vote for.

• Evidence linked, method public, overrides reasoned

  Every grade links its evidence; the method is published; any manual override carries a public reason.

• No best-to-worst ranking

  Legislators are shown by chamber and district, never ranked best to worst.

• Legislators' disputes answered

  A legislator who disputes a grade or vote record gets a published response within two business days and a correction if the record was wrong.

Comments and community

• Community posts are claims, not record

  A Voices post or member dispatch is cited only as what its named author said, never as a fact of record.

• A person reads before it publishes

  Every community submission is read by a person before publication; the automated check flags, it does not approve.

• Comment policy

  Comments that attack people for who they are, incite violence or make unsourced accusations against named people are removed; sharp disagreement stays.

• Tips stay anonymous

  The tip line is anonymous and never merges with Voices; a story never identifies a tipster.

• Comments are not quoted in stories

  The desk does not quote readers' comments in stories.

• Member privacy

  Members' names and activity are never published beyond what they made public on their profile.

Sponsorship and money

• Undisclosed sponsorship

  Any promotion that reads as paid or exchanged placement discloses the relationship in the copy.

• Sponsors buy nothing editorial

  Sponsors underwrite production and never buy coverage, placement, advance review or a masthead seat.

• Advertising buys space, never coverage

  The Colony carries advertising on its public surfaces. Advertisers buy space and never coverage; members read ad-free; no rates, formats or inventory are published. Sponsorship is a named underwriter disclosed on the page it funds and is a separate arrangement.

• Donors disclosed above a threshold

  Donors and sponsors are published only if they agree to be.

• No membership pitch inside copy

  Membership pitches live in their own components, never dressed as copy inside a story's body.

• Prices quoted are prices charged

  The site never quotes a price it does not charge; every figure comes from one source in code.

• Financial relationships disclosed in stories

  A story about any party that has paid The Colony says so in the story.

Where these came from

They are not house style handed down by an editor. They were compiled from the owner’s own answers to a long questionnaire about how this newsroom should work, and they change the same way — by changing an answer and recompiling, never by editing the list.

Questions about a specific call? Contact us, or read how the newsroom works.