About Trustnodes: Journalistic Principles, Values and Ethics

Journalistic Principles, Values and Ethics – TrustnodesAbout Trustnodes: Journalistic Principles, Values and Ethics – Trustnodes

Trustnodes is widely recognized for its high quality reporting on digital finance, trusted to provide accurate, impartial, independent and fair coverage of developments in a fast moving and highly innovative space.

We are committed to achieving the highest standards of accuracy and impartiality and strive to avoid knowingly or materially misleading our audience.

This underpins our reputation as provider of news that you can trust with the highest journalistic standards applied in our reporting.

Mission Statement: The mission of Trustnodes is to bring you tomorrow today. That means focusing on innovative developments in code based finance and more widely with the aim of inspiring and informing the public through high-quality distinctive journalism.

Ownership Structure, Funding and Grants: Trustnodes has not received any Venture Capital (VC) investment as of January 2021, nor any outside grant nor funding.

We have no conflict of interest with any company or entity in this space or any other space, with Trustnodes being journalist owned and self funded.

To avoid any undue influence, our automated ad management is outsourced to specialists with our priority focusing on providing impartial and independent unbiased news to our subscribers and the wider public.

We are independent of outside interests and arrangements that could undermine our editorial integrity.

Founding Date: Trustnodes was founded on the 14th of March 2017.

Ethics Policy: The trust our readers have in our impartial reporting underpins everything we do.

Trustnodes therefore aims to not only exercise full integrity in our reporting, but also to be perceived to do so.

In particular we aim to avoid any conflict of interest or any position that might color our reportage.

We clearly separate our news content from our editorial content, and we separate both from our press releases section.

• Guidelines on Press Releases

We strive in all ways to avoid any undue influence on what news we report or on what opinion we express on our editorial section, and aim to be as objective as possible in presenting the facts to inform our readers as best as we can.

That can sometime involve undercover reporting and/or unannounced fact gathering sessions with the aim of gaining a more natural picture of developments or projects.

At all times we seek to give a fair hearing and generally announce our position as a reporter after the facts are gathered or when suitable.

Our editorial stance is to refrain from undue speculation or reporting on rumors without attributing sources unless the rumor itself is newsworthy, in which case it is identified as such.

We give less weight to anonymous sources and aim to corroborate a story, with our editorial stance favoring not reporting on a development unless we can be reasonably sure of the accuracy of a statement or event.

Our editorial stance is political neutrality unless it directly affects our space. That includes geopolitical neutrality, with Trustnodes aiming to favor neither the left nor the right, neither the north nor the south, neither the east nor the west, again unless it directly affects our space.

Fundamentally we aim to report without fear nor favor, and strive to do so with the fullest of integrity.

Corrections: Trustnodes is committed to full accuracy. Our reporting must be evidence based, well sourced and presented in a clear, precise language.

Where there’s a mistake, we will correct it and add a note at the end of the article clarifying the amendment or correction.

If there is a small error in a story that does not alter its editorial meaning (eg name misspelling), the correction will be made without an additional note.

Unless content is specifically made available only for a limited time period, there is a presumption the material published will become part of a permanently accessible archive and will not normally be removed or edited except as stated above. Exceptional circumstances may include legal reasons, personal safety risks, or a serious breach of editorial standards that cannot be rectified except by removal of the material.

Verification/Fact-checking Standards: Accuracy is not simply a matter of getting facts right. Relevant opinions as well as facts may need to be considered. The trustworthiness of tools or stats too. When necessary, all the relevant facts and information should be weighed to get at the truth.

Where appropriate, we should check facts and statistics, identifying important limitations and interpretations.

In addition we need to ensure of the authenticity of a document or its author especially if it’s in a digital form.

We aim to corroborate claims and allegations while weighing and contextualizing any claims, including statistical claims.

We should verify first-hand facts and events whenever possible and where practicable corroborate the evidence of first hand sources.

We should be reluctant to rely on anonymous sources. If we do rely on a single source, it should be credible, and a named, on-the-record source is always preferable.

We must check and verify information, facts and documents, where required to achieve due accuracy. If we have been unable to verify material we should usually say so and attribute the information.

Unnamed Sources: Trustnodes takes due care when citing unnamed sources and aims to describe their position.

Generally there must be a good reason for a source to not be named, but we try to be accommodative whenever possible where circumstances require.

Actionable Feedback: Trustnodes welcomes any feedback which can be emailed to [email protected]

Leadership: Trustnodes is journalist owned with our editorial position being the avoidance of bylines as they can potentially interfere with the impersonal nature of news.

We strive to report the facts without fear or favor, as long as it is well sourced, evidence based, and as long as we are open and honest about what we don’t know.

Our overall guiding principle is to inform by objectively presenting events with a focus on bringing you tomorrow today.