Our first duty is to readers: report what we can support, show the basis for material factual claims, and correct the record plainly when we get it wrong.
Independence and accuracy
- We distinguish verified facts, attributed claims, analysis, and opinion.
- We seek original public records and direct, on-the-record sources for material civic reporting whenever they are available.
- We give people and organizations a fair opportunity to respond to significant factual allegations before publication when practicable.
- We do not invent certainty. When a fact is unconfirmed or a record is incomplete, we say so.
Evidence, links, and verification
Reporting built from public records should identify the originating source or link to it when doing so does not create a safety, privacy, or legal concern. Civic reference pages display a verification date so readers can judge the freshness of the information. A link is evidence, not an endorsement of every statement on the linked site.
Publication safeguard: Public database-derived material must come from the controlled publication snapshot. Records that are not publishable or have not completed the required editorial promotion gate do not belong on a public Ledger page.
Automation and AI
Automation may help collect, normalize, compare, or draft from source material. It does not independently decide that an item is ready to publish. An editor remains responsible for the published work, including factual review, attribution, headlines, descriptions, and corrections.
We do not present generated text as independently reported fact. Where automation materially shapes a public civic answer, the answer remains subject to the same sourcing, review, and correction standards as any other publication.
Elections and organizational separation
The Sussex Ledger's election reporting is editorially controlled by the newsroom. OV6/Overwatch Veteran's 6 does not participate in election ingestion, editing, publication, or promotion. The public newsroom and a separate paid intelligence product remain separate: Ledger reporting stays public and crawlable, while paid intelligence workflows do not control the public news record.
Corrections and updates
We correct substantive errors promptly and transparently. Routine updates that add context or new verified information may be labeled as updates; a correction identifies what was wrong and what changed. See the corrections policy and log.
Conflicts and coverage decisions
We disclose relevant ownership, financial, personal, or organizational conflicts where a reasonable reader would want that context. Learn more in our conflicts and ownership disclosure.