We have great news to share: The Texas Tribune has become a full partner of The Trust Project, an international consortium of news organizations that adhere to the highest standards of transparency, accuracy, inclusion and fairness so that the public can make informed news choices and find accurate, credible information.
Our partnership with The Trust Project recognizes that The Texas Tribune has agreed to abide by eight Trust Indicators that are widely held to be markers of journalistic reliability.
1. Best Practices. We are committed to independent, accurate and honest reporting. Our longstanding code of ethics lays out our policies on accuracy and attribution, sourcing, impartiality and conflicts of interest, and our independence from donors, sponsors and advertisers. In addition, we adhere to the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, a widely accepted statement of what journalists do: seek truth and report it; minimize harm; act independently; and be accountable and transparent. When we make an error, we acknowledge and correct it. We disclose our sources of funding and the all-volunteer, nonpartisan board of directors that oversees our nonprofit newsroom.
2. Journalistic Expertise. Our journalists follow strict standards for gathering solid evidence and multiple perspectives. We conduct interviews. We examine data, quantitative as well as qualitative. We tell the stories of ordinary people and how they are affected by government policies. Most of our reporters are assigned to “beats,” or areas of specialization. Some beats are thematic (politics, health and social services, education, energy and environment) while others are geographic (based in Lubbock, Lufkin, and Odessa and other Texas regions). Our staff directory lists every journalist’s role and their educational and professional backgrounds.
3. Labels. The Tribune does not have an opinion section. We seek to present the news neutrally, without any intent to persuade the reader of what to think or what policies or politicians to support, or oppose. We label our most ambitious and time-consuming journalism as investigations. We also label articles that are not traditional news stories but rather seek to explain complex issues, or the workings of government. On occasion, we will publish essays by scholars that offer context, analysis or historical perspective on an event that’s in the news. We disclose partnerships and collaborations with other newsrooms, and we clearly label content that was produced by another newsroom but republished (with permission) on the Tribune’s website. Our T-Squared series explains the inner workings of The Tribune, including staff announcements and news about awards and grants. Finally, we occasionally publish sponsored content, all of which are labeled as Paid Posts and are visually distinguished from our journalism.
4. References. Journalists rely on all kinds of sources: eyewitnesses, lawmakers, neighbors, school board members, data sets, spreadsheets, and government records. We seek to be transparent about our methods and processes, and to use hyperlinks to show the original source of online material. We credit other news sources when they reported significant findings before we did. We avoid the use of anonymous sources unless it’s absolutely necessary to report on a matter that’s clearly in the public interest.
5. Methods. We disclose not only our sources but also our methods. Particularly for long-term investigative and explanatory projects, we disclose how we approached the reporting topic, the methods we used (interviews, requests for government records, confidential records furnished by sources), the places we visited, and the kinds of people we spoke to, so that readers can judge for themselves whether our factual conclusions are reliable, impartial and credible.
6. Locally Sourced. All Texas Tribune journalists live and work in Texas (except for our correspondent based in Washington, D.C., who covers Texas’ congressional delegation). The majority of our employees were born and raised in Texas. We approach our communities not only as observers and chroniclers but also as citizens, residents and neighbors. We also seek to travel widely across the state, recognizing that Texas is too diverse and vast to understand without broad engagement across diverse communities.
7. Diverse Voices. We recognize that many communities do not see themselves adequately reflected in the news, and as a result may not trust the news. Whether because of socioeconomic status, region, education, religion, generation, gender, gender identity or other factors, many Texans may feel unseen and unheard. We try our hardest to provide diverse stories about diverse communities, presented by diverse Texas journalists, for diverse audiences across Texas and beyond. We want to tell the story of the full, rich, complex human tapestry that is Texas. We seek not to exacerbate societal divisions, but rather to provide a foundation of high-quality news so that participants in our diverse, pluralistic democracy can engage in civil, fact-based discussion and debate. We chronicle challenges and problems, but we also seek to tell stories of solutions and of people making positive change.
8. Actionable Feedback. We invite and take seriously all public feedback, whether praise, criticism or requests for corrections. We also welcome tips, suggestions and ideas for how to improve our coverage. Every member of our staff is listed on (and can be emailed through) our staff directory page. Confidential tips should be sent to tips@texastribune.org, and corrections to corrections@texastribune.org.
The Trust Project was founded in 2014 by CEO Sally Lehrman, an award-winning journalist who has been covering science, and social issues related to science, for many years, and launched in 2017. It relies on expert advisers, respected journalism leaders, and working groups to keep its standards up to date.
The Trust Project has received funding from Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Google, the Democracy Fund, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (all of which have also been funders of The Texas Tribune) and the Markkula Foundation. Technology companies work with us as external partners. Google, Facebook, and Bing use the Trust Indicators and their associated machine-readable signals in various ways to enhance their ability to differentiate reliable, trustworthy journalism from other information.
Other Trust Project news partners include BBC News, CBC News, The Denver Post, The Economist, FRONTLINE, The (Toronto) Globe and Mail, Montana Free Press, Investigate Midwest, La Prensa (Panama), El País (Spain), The Washington Post, Tegna and Wisconsin Watch. We’re very proud to be in the distinguished company of global and domestic news outlets — public, commercial and nonprofit — that share our commitment to these abiding principles.
While The Trust Project announced our collaboration in March, it took us several more months to complete the compliance requirements for the Trust Indicators, including the placement of a distinct logo (the Trust Mark) on our web pages. We are deeply grateful to our colleagues on the engineering, design and product teams, particularly Product Manager Reese Oxner, for helping us achieve this milestone.
